2012
●Adventure, Action, Science Fiction Exhilarating and Jaw dropping.
Product Description
Now this is how you destroy the world. Roland Emmerich's 2012 pounces on a Nostradamus-style loophole in the Mayan calendar and rams the apocalypse through it, gleefully conjuring up an enormous amount of Saturday-matinee fun in the process. A scientist (Chiwetel Ejiofor) detects shifting continental plates and sun flares and realizes that this foretells the imminent destruction of the planet. Just as the molten lava is about to hit the fan, a novelist (John Cusack) takes his kids on a trip to Yellowstone; later he'll hook up with his ex (Amanda Peet) and her new boyfriend (Tom McCarthy) in a global journey toward safety. If there is any safety. The suitably hair-raising plot lines are punctuated--frequently, people, frequently--by visions of mayhem around the globe: the Vatican falls over, the White House is clobbered (Emmerich's Independence Day was not enough on that score), and the California coastline dives into the Pacific Ocean. Unlike other action directors we could name, Emmerich actually understands how to let you see and drink in these vast special-effects vistas--and they are incredible. He also honors the old Irwin Allen disaster-movie tradition by actually shelling out for good actors. Cusack and Ejiofor are convincing even in the cheesiest material; toss in Danny Glover (the U.S. president), Woody Harrelson (a nut-bar conspiracy-theorizing radio host), Thandie Newton, and Oliver Platt, and you've got a very watchable batch of people. Emmerich hasn't developed an ear for dialogue, even at this stage in his career, and the final act goes on a bit too long. This is a very silly movie, but if you've got a weakness for B-movie energy and hairbreadth escapes, 2012 delivers quite a bit of both. --Robert Horton
Stills from 2012 (Click for larger image)
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★★★☆☆ liked all of it except the ending
Everything except the ending was very entertaining if you happen to really like apocalyptic or "doomsday" films.
80 percent of the film features a lot of action and I don't see how you could get bored watching it - it was very entertaining.
This majority part is what I really liked about the film.
Unlike some other reviewers I think the special effects were very impressive and had an epic feel to them.
So up until the ending I would have rated the film 5/5 for its entertainment value alone.
This leads me to the bad part of it: the ending.
The bad part is the extremely "cheesy" ending, I hated the ending of 'Independence Day' and the ending of this film is too similar to that. It's the same unrealistic, "pretty", and really stupid ending.
80 percent of the film features a lot of action and I don't see how you could get bored watching it - it was very entertaining.
This majority part is what I really liked about the film.
Unlike some other reviewers I think the special effects were very impressive and had an epic feel to them.
So up until the ending I would have rated the film 5/5 for its entertainment value alone.
This leads me to the bad part of it: the ending.
The bad part is the extremely "cheesy" ending, I hated the ending of 'Independence Day' and the ending of this film is too similar to that. It's the same unrealistic, "pretty", and really stupid ending.
★★★★★ Lenny Bruce is not afraid
2012: 8 out of 10: I love disaster movies. I love good disaster movies such as The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure. I love bad disaster movies such as The Swarm and Independence Day. I even enjoy, if not love, Horrible disaster movies such as Syfy channel stalwarts Megafault and Magma: Volcanic Disaster.
2012 is solidly in the good disaster movie genre. As I have stated before in my The Core review Disaster movies always seem to do better when the disaster is local in scope. A city threatened by avalanche, a tower threatened by an inferno, a Poseidon threatened by an adventure, that kind of thing. Earth killer movies are always a harder road.
2012 dodges this bullet slightly by having neutrinos from a massive solar flare penetrate the Earth and cause the temperature of the core to increase rapidly. Like a microwave one scientist very helpfully explains. Of course why these same neutrinos dont cause the oceans to boil is a plot hole that the movie delightfully ignores. Still compared to The Core or The Day after Tomorrow, 2012s science is practically textbook.
Now since the core is expanding this causes the earths crust to erupt in different directions (think a Jiffy Pop container). This allows disaster footage from all over the earth. And we all know where disasters strike first. Thats right monuments. Vegas, Washington DC, Vatican City, Los Angeles, Yellowstone, Hawaii, and others get there turn in the special effects blender. The set pieces are generally well thought out often with sly commentary attached. (A giant rolling donut in LA, A slick atheist Where is your God now rub at the Vatican.). The special effects are all magnificent.
I will briefly talk about the actors in a minute (Generally speaking they all do fine) but the star is the effects. The detail work (as can be seen in the disaster porn pictures below) is simply amazing. Director Roland Emmerich puts his 250 million dollar budget on the screen. For once the buildings that collapse have people in them. The disasters do not happen in the rain or at night and the camera doesnt jerk around as if directed by an epileptic sugar glider.
The location work is creative as are the disasters. (Lets face it a tsunami driving an aircraft carrier into the White House is imagination at work.) In addition, the story is a fairly grounded version of that old When Worlds Collide plot where all the smart rich and good looking people get on a spaceship and escape Earth while all the less attractive people all die horribly.
The movie halfheartedly tries to address the unfairness of who gets chosen but we really didnt come for a civics lesson and honestly there are worse ways to go than just picking attractive rich people. We also didnt come for the acting, but unlike many of its contemporaries, the acting in 2012 seems solid across the board.
Some of the various side plots fall a little flat (especially considering the two and a half hour length, the old guys on the boat subplot could have been jettisoned in its entirety.) On the plus side Zlatko Buric as the Russian billionaire ex-boxer and Woody Harrelson as the crazy mountain man (doing his best Matthew McConaughey impression mind you) are the stand outs.
Overall we came for the disaster porn and simply put 2012 delivers some of the best disaster porn ever seen on screen, and manages this feat with fewer of the bad acting and horrible storyline distractions that usually accompany such films. Bravo.
2012 is solidly in the good disaster movie genre. As I have stated before in my The Core review Disaster movies always seem to do better when the disaster is local in scope. A city threatened by avalanche, a tower threatened by an inferno, a Poseidon threatened by an adventure, that kind of thing. Earth killer movies are always a harder road.
2012 dodges this bullet slightly by having neutrinos from a massive solar flare penetrate the Earth and cause the temperature of the core to increase rapidly. Like a microwave one scientist very helpfully explains. Of course why these same neutrinos dont cause the oceans to boil is a plot hole that the movie delightfully ignores. Still compared to The Core or The Day after Tomorrow, 2012s science is practically textbook.
Now since the core is expanding this causes the earths crust to erupt in different directions (think a Jiffy Pop container). This allows disaster footage from all over the earth. And we all know where disasters strike first. Thats right monuments. Vegas, Washington DC, Vatican City, Los Angeles, Yellowstone, Hawaii, and others get there turn in the special effects blender. The set pieces are generally well thought out often with sly commentary attached. (A giant rolling donut in LA, A slick atheist Where is your God now rub at the Vatican.). The special effects are all magnificent.
I will briefly talk about the actors in a minute (Generally speaking they all do fine) but the star is the effects. The detail work (as can be seen in the disaster porn pictures below) is simply amazing. Director Roland Emmerich puts his 250 million dollar budget on the screen. For once the buildings that collapse have people in them. The disasters do not happen in the rain or at night and the camera doesnt jerk around as if directed by an epileptic sugar glider.
The location work is creative as are the disasters. (Lets face it a tsunami driving an aircraft carrier into the White House is imagination at work.) In addition, the story is a fairly grounded version of that old When Worlds Collide plot where all the smart rich and good looking people get on a spaceship and escape Earth while all the less attractive people all die horribly.
The movie halfheartedly tries to address the unfairness of who gets chosen but we really didnt come for a civics lesson and honestly there are worse ways to go than just picking attractive rich people. We also didnt come for the acting, but unlike many of its contemporaries, the acting in 2012 seems solid across the board.
Some of the various side plots fall a little flat (especially considering the two and a half hour length, the old guys on the boat subplot could have been jettisoned in its entirety.) On the plus side Zlatko Buric as the Russian billionaire ex-boxer and Woody Harrelson as the crazy mountain man (doing his best Matthew McConaughey impression mind you) are the stand outs.
Overall we came for the disaster porn and simply put 2012 delivers some of the best disaster porn ever seen on screen, and manages this feat with fewer of the bad acting and horrible storyline distractions that usually accompany such films. Bravo.
★☆☆☆☆ Should have been a Comedy instead
This review contains no real spoilers but let me basically sum it up for you. This is just simply an absolute waste of movie film, digital film, or whatever the heck they are using these days to make cheesy flicks like this. Albeit, the special effects were decent but nothing you havn't already seen many times over in your typical disaster movie. On the other hand the acting was like something out of a 70's B movie, the plot was...wait a minute...there was no plot,and the storyline in general was nothing short of complete predictability. As if the non stop narrow death misses of the main characters were unbelievable enough the writer of this train wreck apparently thought it amusing to have several moments of humorous quips from the characters while the world was falling down around them. Adding further suspension of disbelief, people in this film stop and talk about stupid personal issues during the most ridiculous moments as buildings are toppling all around them and the earth is virtually crumbling under their feet. By the way, did I mention that none of these characters are interesting or likable except for maybe Woody Harrelson as the amusing nut job conspiracy theorist. Poor ol Woody must have really needed the paycheck because this film will end up going down as one of the worst made on his resume. During the film all I could do was wish and hope for everyone to DIE and die quickly to put me out of my misery from this maelstrom of over dramatic non-sense. Lastly, of course it's the MADE IN CHINA ship that provides the true safe haven for humanity. Gee, don't see any political double meaning with that? Guess we should all keep shopping at Wal-Mart because we are actually funding our future for survival of the human race.
★★★☆☆ Problems to get DVD to Play
I have a 52" Samsung LCD flat panel with a Samsung Blu-ray DVD player connected to my Sony digital receiver and all my other Blu-ray DVD's play fine. The 2012 disc is giving be problems. It will not play no matter what. This is the 2nd DVD, with the same problem. Anybody have some suggestions
★★☆☆☆ Who would want to live?
The best way to capture the imagination of individuals is to update a traditional story. Through familiarity and repetition, the listener/viewer is mesmerized to believe the story, because it is already embedded into the psyche. "2012" is a contemporary version of Noah's Ark. It's a dramatic, pseudo-scientific explanation to how the world, as we know it, will end. Like any Hollywood morality tale, the fight is against saving all of humanity (including the dregs) versus the upper echelon that would create a world based on genetic and economic specialization.
"2012" is filled with altruism, special effects, and subliminal messages. There's a part in the movie after the flood where John Cusack's daughter asks him when are they going back home. His response was "We're going to make a new home here." "2012" is the Terror Attacks of September 11, 2001 multiplied by a million and the sentiments are tantamount to a tree falling on a house and someone saying---"We're just call All State for an estimate." Obviously, we have to grant a certain amount of "Dramatic License" to imaginary events, but this movie asks us to suspend reality altogether.
This movie has artistic value in its cinematography, but the storyline is hackneyed and overly moralistic.
Edward Brown
Core Edge Image & Charisma Institute
"2012" is filled with altruism, special effects, and subliminal messages. There's a part in the movie after the flood where John Cusack's daughter asks him when are they going back home. His response was "We're going to make a new home here." "2012" is the Terror Attacks of September 11, 2001 multiplied by a million and the sentiments are tantamount to a tree falling on a house and someone saying---"We're just call All State for an estimate." Obviously, we have to grant a certain amount of "Dramatic License" to imaginary events, but this movie asks us to suspend reality altogether.
This movie has artistic value in its cinematography, but the storyline is hackneyed and overly moralistic.
Edward Brown
Core Edge Image & Charisma Institute
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