Doomsday melodramatic cheese fest from latter-day Irwin Allen

Rating: 7/10 (24 November 2009)

2012 (2009) *** John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiewetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, Thomas McCarthy, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover, Liam James, Morgan Lily, Zlatko Buric, Beatrice Rosen, George Segal, Blu Mankuma, Stephen McHattie. Doomsday melodramatic cheese churned with bombastic glee by latter-day Irwin Allen of the 21st century/disaster impresario Roland Emmerich proffers the end-of-the-world in the titular annui while positioning family man/Everyman Cusack to save his brood from imminent death. The real stars of the genre flick are of course the jaw-dropping, eye-popping special effect visual wizardry (to wit for my bang for the buck money shot: the wipe-out of Los Angeles is truly worth the price of admission); having said that (i.e. shooting its wad) the film is logy in its pacing and length (nearly 3 hours; you'd think the end of the world would be quicker?) with far too many 'plot lines' and characters you frankly don't care too much about. Best seen on the big screen for all its vulgar and perhaps tasteless debauchery (i.e. ghosts of 9/11 flicker in many shots); but really a dumb, feel guilty later popcorn flick.