Like the Mayans, this film fails to pretend 2012 right.

Rating: 6/10 (29 December 2012)

The plot to this is real simple -it's the end of the world. In 2009's 2012 solar flares from the sun are melting the earth from the inside-out, causing massive earthquakes, tsunamis, & everything you can think can happen in any disaster movie happens here. It's the mother of all disaster movies. Director Roland Emmerich provides us with a couple of poorly developed cookie-cutter meat-bags to experience the action with, as they continue to run away from while figuring out how to live throughout the disasters. Roland Emmerich's movies tend to have the same formulas to his films. Too much characters in a film that the audience rarely cares about. 2012s narrative is told from two points of view: those who know about the cataclysmic events that await the earth and those who remain in the dark. At the center of death and destruction is Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), a failed author with a failed marriage. He stumbles upon the news that the world as we know it is coming to an end. John Cusack is just playing John Cusack here. We rarely see any character development in the film. All he wants is becomes a hero in the eyes of his kids, his ex-wife Kate (Amanda Pete) and her current husband, Gordon (Thomas McCarthy). He heard this news from Charles Frost (Woody Harrelson) a hippie doomdayer. Woody Harrelson is just playing Woody Harrelson full of intentionally funny scenes. Woody Harrelson's character as the whack-job conspiracy-theorist and pirate-radio DJ that ends up being correct about all that "end of the world" nonsense. As useless as it is, the story and explanation behind 2012 is decently believable, the actions and escapes the main characters make however are anything but. Suspended disbelief is required for any film like this, John Cusack out-running earthquake by limo, by airplane, RV, and others. The film was trying to be so epic, that it made it unbelievable. This movie had too many cheesy "close calls". By the time the audience reached the end, it become unreal. There are supporting cast that wasn't really needed in this film if only rewritten a bit. It eats up screen time what's little left for the main characters. The film's middle-act definitely tends to drag, as it's just one suspense-filled disaster sequence after another - with very little time given to character development or even inter-character dialogue. Another thread in Roland's films are the destruction of famous landmark. the Vegas Strip, the White House, Yellowstone National Park - are blew away, even if the geography and spatial orientation doesn't make sense in half of them. The film is just a joyful orgasm of exploding cities! But after a few of these eye-popping monstrosities, the novelty wears thin. Most of the films length (158 minutes!) is just CGI special effects. I even caught myself rolling my eyes at the preposterous conclusion. People only watched 2012 for the destruction, to see people dying, explosions, death, depressing scenes and actually enjoy people's suffering as they attempt surviving the' end of days'. Curiously though, a movie fraught with death and disaster ends on a uncharacteristic up-beat, which I felt was awfully shameless given the near six-billion humans that died during the film. The film is corny, and cheesy. The biggest disaster in this movie is it's clichés, and huge plot holes. According to the film, the apocalypse is near. The Mayan calendar is set to reach the end of its 13th cycle on December 21, 2012 and nothing follows that date. 2012 tells the story of whats to come. Nothing happen in 2012, the world didn't end. So this movie is nearly pointless. Films like this are suppose to involves powerful emotive suggestion & hidden meaning thats different to what what you think the film is about. Try interpreting this film as if the disaster element was not a component. Interpret it in terms of political, economic and social change. There are a lot of gullible people out there who think the world is gonna end in 2012 because of this movie. Really lame marketing, sub-par film. The film is not tolerable in the eyes of intelligent people, it get really boring to hear about 2012 and see every minute of the doomsday propaganda. I just glad 2012 is done and gone-- so people can look at this movie for what it is, a comedy.