At least the popcorn was good.

Rating: 2/10 (15 November 2009)

In case you haven't heard, "2012" is about the end of the world. Actually, that's the entire plot, so maybe this should be considered a spoiler.
Estimates are that this movie cost about $260 million to make. I guess a quarter-billion dollars just doesn't buy what it used to. It's roughly twice what Roland Emmerich squandered on "The Day After Tomorrow," which is apropos, I suppose, since "2012", believe it or not, is every bit of twice as bad as "Day After."
I'm not even sure where to start, but writing is always a good launching point. "2012" is a careening, convoluted cacophony of practically every possible disaster movie cliché. We have the usual ticking clock, a common literary device, arbitrarily accelerated when the writer/director felt a need to heighten the tension. We have flat, transparent characters who end up being little more than placeholders around which to construct the endless, tiresome special effects. And, of course, we have the special effects, so shamelessly and randomly contrived as to render the destruction of the world tedious. I ended up wishing the world would hurry up and end already, but no, there had to be yet another, and another, and another, plot twist; inartfully conceived, predictably staged, and completely inert.
The cast fared no better. John Cusak is one of my favorite actors, but he had no character to portray. Do we really need another hack writer, failed husband derelict trying to remain relevant in the lives of his children vis-a-vis mommy's new, rich husband? The kids were just two-dimensional cutout characters - mere props in the CGI scenery. Danny Glover, a passable character actor, was completely out of his depth as The Last President of the United States. Even George Bush seemed competent and intelligent by comparison. Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Amanda Peet, Woody Harrelson - all fine actors, were lost within characters lacking even a hint of humanity or depth.
The only thing this movie has going for it, although obviously not what Emmerich intended, is that it is pathetically funny. We laughed till our sides hurt as we called out each and every plot device before they were hauled out with all the subtlety of a train wreck and the unfailing predictability of an atomic clock. What's worse, each new twist was more ridiculous than the last until, as we roared with laughter, the entire Earth itself was conveniently shifted at the exact moment and extent necessary to start another cycle of completely absurd events.
"2012" is epically bad, monumentally stupid, and cataclysmically boring. At least the popcorn was good.