Entertainment for the brain-dead masses

Rating: Null/10 (3 December 2009)

In Roland Emmerich's latest film, the world is coming to an end just as the ancient civilization of the Mayans predicted. In their famous calendar the world ends in 2012 due to a global cataclysm.And that's exactly what happens in this film. Small signs start to show in 2009 and it all happens in full force by the 21 of December of 2012. The earth starts to crumble,cities collapse,the sea emerges,tsunamis start to form,volcanoes erupt, all kinds of natural disasters you can think of. And that is pretty much the story here. In the middle of all this is Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), the everyday man who is trying to save his loved ones, his ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet) and their two young kids. But to be honest, who cares? The central point of the movie is the on going disaster and therefor the characters are paper-thin and uninteresting. Now,obviously the cgi is good and the movie is all about the eye candy but the action is very silly,over the top and implausible.How many times can the main characters fly between falling buildings without getting hit?? How many coincidences and luck-outs does this boring broken family have? It doesn't help that with the exception of Amanda Peet who looked genuinely afraid and concerned, all the other actors did a terrible, let me re-enforce that, TERRIBLE job. John Cusack seemed completely lost and his dialog was as sappy as it can get, Danny Glover's portrayal of an American President was cringe-worthy ,Chiwetel Ejiofor who played Adrian Helmsley, the geologist helping the white house, was clearly an actor acting if you know what I mean, Thandie Newton( she played the President's daughter) was probably one of the worst despite her having the least lines and Hoody Harrelson failed completely at being the comedy relief. In fact, there shouldn't even exist a comedy relief at all; this is the end of the world and the writers are trying to make us laugh and break the tension? It just makes impossible for someone to take the film seriously. Also the film was painfully long, they could have easily cut 30 minutes of footage and it would have made for a better film. If you want to see a visual spectacle, then 2012 is definitely for you, if you're looking for something else( which most people are I hope) skip it. Bottom line is, never the end of the world looked so boring and silly.
5/10