OMG2012 might happen. Actually, I'd rather die on 12/21/12 than watch this again.

Rating: 1/10 (2 December 2009)

Funny. On a recent episode of Family Guy, Brian gets a earful of truth serum from Quagmire and the last thing (of many) Quagmire said was: "You know what, I could forgive all of that, all of that, if you weren't such a bore."
I forgave a lot of what was wrong in 2012 but the one thing I couldn't bypass is that it was such a bore. And that was the one thing that surprised me the most. Even knowing it was way too long at over 2½ hours, I didn't expect such Pearl Harbor moments that made me yawn and wonder what the heck were they thinking?
What I did know, was how silly it was from the 5-minute internet-released trailer. I figured I would laugh, or at least snicker at some of the scenes. I found myself doing that at more than one occasion, and it wasn't the blatant and unrealistic destruction scenes. It was just how bad this movie was, when they tried to show "heart" or "feeling" or "warmth." Or at the consistent "near-misses" for our, uh, so-called, "heroes." Or the number of plane dipping.
Despite the sometimes good special effects – I honestly can't justify giving it an extra half star for that due to the overwhelming negatives, I will say this in the movie's favor: I didn't snicker or laugh out loud as many times as I thought I would. (Side note: I watched both Twilight and The Happening because I was in the mood for a comedy and for the most part, I did laugh heartedly throughout those two films.) In this film, I was just simply bored. And also previously mentioned, this movie was so Pearl Harbor, where there were just a few scenes of mass-destruction, the reason people would want to see this mess or the reason they made it, and the rest was just plain awful. Awful, awful, awful and terribly bad.
Shame on you, Cusack. Selling out. Again, that is. You could've been one of my all-time favorite actors. It all started going downhill since Con Air. Sure, he's had one or two good movies since, such as 1408. (Weird, perhaps he should choose more wisely for movie titles that contain only four digits.)
Following Emmerich's very similar The Day After Tomorrow, a million things completely impossible happen within a matter of days. Here we have the very wrong theory of 12/21/12 where the Mayan calendar ends and the world as we know it shifts axis, thus destroying all mankind and man's kind of civilization. Enter in the very stereotypical divorced dad (Cusack here, Quaid in Tomorrow) and his ex, his kids, the new beauthe whole cast is recycled sitcom/disaster-movie characters.
Butthat's not what you bought a ticket for, right? It was to see big explosions. Am I right? Well, unfortunately, they're so few and far between, it's hard to justify a recommendation – heck, it's like 40+ minutes before anything happens. And what's worse, is the fake "heart-filled" scenes and really, really, REALLY bad jokes and puns.
Okay, this movie is fairly, make that enormously easy to ridicule. It wasn't made to earn Oscars – though I am sure it's going to be up for special effects, but come on. Try a little bit. Try to show real emotion, real dialogue, real people. Do something memorable.
I expect this out of Michael Bay. He cares more about using gasoline to explode stuff than character development, genuine thrills, emotion and plot development. Though Emmerich is only a half a step higher, he will genuinely win the contests between the two buffoons. Here, he not only matches Bay's horrible movie-making qualities, he almost takes the prize away from Transformers 2 as the worst of 2009.
To sum up, this movie is all disaster movies in one: Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow, Poseidon, Pearl Harbor, Independence Day, Deep Impact, Dante's Peak and many more. Heck, it mimicked Wall-E, and I should be shot for stating that. It has horrible acting, clichés (oh, the clichés!), dialogue, comedy and thee most unrealistic scenes of flight ever on film. I mean, really, how many lives do these nobodies have? How many times do we have to see a plane dip? Seriously, how many coincidences and luck-outs do this boring broken family have?
I think this was sincerely made for only two types of people: those who actually believe 12/21/12 is the end (ha ha ha ha ha – I've said this before, but I sincerely don't believe in this "end of time" conspiracy theory, but even if I am wrong, I'll be dead with everyone else, so who cares?) and for those who just blindly want to see millions die as buildings collide. To each their own, but I appreciate a movie-goer who appreciates film as an art and not as mindless special effects engine.
And the joke's on you people. Both kinds. But, speaking specifically to the later group, you'll get like maybe 30 minutes out of 158 of what you paid your money for. I'm glad you'll have to suffer through the rest, for the low taste you have.
(Okay, that last part was harsh. Again, to each their own. But each ticket sold – like the never-ending Saw series, justifies these crappy movies. I have made it a point to cease watching the Saw movies for this very reason: I have to stop being part of the problem. For the money I spend, I expect more. And with less tickets sold, Hollywood might actually take notice.)