"When they tell you not to panic... that's when you run"

Rating: 7/10 (27 November 2009)

The quote I chose for the summary is an example of how this may frighten people(and I mean outside the safe environment of the darkened movie theater). Let's start by getting that out of the way; the world is not going to end in three years, scientists agree that it will not be that soon. And before you say "but the Mayans said...", no, they did not. That's a common misunderstanding. No, the fact is, their calendar *for a certain period of time* ends 2012. And then another one starts. Actually, as far as I understand, they did not really predict an Armageddon. There are people who want it to mean that the planet will be toast in that little time, and, hey, if you want to, I'm not going to stop you. Just... if you want to be informed, look it up. Don't listen to every self-proclaimed Nostradamus. With that out of the way... this is typical Emmerich stuff. If you've seen one... yeah. The effects, which are excellent, are the focus. A lot of them don't affect the viewer; their grandeur and epic scope alienate us. FX improve and their status gets upgraded from "story-telling tool" to "main attraction". There is not room for much emotion, though this does evoke a bit here and there. And it definitely is a cool ride of dumb, fun thrills. I can't claim that I wasn't excited and entertained, at times, or that I was pulled out of the experience by anything. The pacing varies, and the thing's at least half an hour too long. Tonally, this is mostly serious, with some comic relief(and the majority of that is not irritating, and that's a nice surprise). It even garners a few laughs, here and there. The acting tends to be great, and the cast is good, and well-chosen. Unusually, the children are not annoying. With few exceptions, this has marvelous editing and cinematography. The script displays naiveté and contains clichés. There is violence(largely mild) and intense sequences, as well as infrequent moderate to strong language in this. I recommend this to fans of disaster flicks and/or the team behind these. 7/10