The cinematic version of a kick to the nuts

Rating: 5/10 (3 April 2010)

2012, starring that guy from Say Anything, is your run of the mill disaster movie. The director, Roland Emmerich, also wrote it. This is either going to make it a great film (Donnie Darko) or a colossal mess (Southland Tales). Unfortunately this is the latter. The story is slow and weak as are the characters. We follow a dad trying to reconnect with and then save his family from the multitude of natural disasters coming their way. It's been done and done better. War of the Worlds did it, so did The Day After Tomorrow (old mate Ron wrote and directed that one too). The film makers would have been better served to base the story around the Mayan's rather than just referencing them. Or spread the protagonists around like Independence Day did. It should of been better. This movie takes forever to get going. I guess it takes time to set up a very flimsy story with characters I feel nothing for. But when it does get going, sweet baby Jesus, there are some good chase scenes! Finally we have lift off. Now, the story is third rate but the action is off the hizook. It's like the people behind Die Hard and the people behind Armageddon used a lot of crack and then had a baby and the crack baby of crazy good action scenes took some more crack and came up with these action scenes. I am still out of breath I tells ya. The best news is there are Yipee Kai Aye moments galore thanks to the terrible writing, so at least there are plenty of unintentional laughs in between all the death and such. Sadly the insane action scenes aren't enough to overcome the frail story. By the end I am glad that it is over. For me, the end of the world couldn't really come quick enough (I am to assume Australia is OK though, as we were not mentioned). This film coulda been a contender, it had a good idea with a nice twist and some remarkable effects, but in the end nothing could save this movie.