About as expected - massive special effects, hardly any story

Rating: 7/10 (14 November 2009)

This comment might contain some mild spoilers.
I just HAD to see this movie, as it has been hyped for months. I didn't really expect much more than we see in Day After Tomorrow, but really had some hopes that it would be both the ultimate disaster movie, and the summary of all the "in 2012 we are doomed"-stories.
Well, it was about as expected, when I saw it last night. Massive, spectacular effects, but thats about all. We see that the earth core is heating up, and therefore causing extremely massive earthquakes, volcano eruptions, tsunamis (of a size to completely wash away India) and of course a pole shift. No Maya story, nothing. At least the SFX were pretty decent, apart from some seconds where I thought that the earth crack looks a bit like a typical computer animation.
I also got the impression that the movie doesn't take itself really seriously (like Independece Day) - overall it was too well made to be unwillingly funny, but 1-2 groups of people in the audience were laughing a bit at some scenes. It also has a typical happy end (considering the situation), and would probably be a "fun for the whole family" movie if less tragic.
Buying a ticket was not really a waste of money, but this movie could have been MUCH more. Maybe all the good ideas where hold back for the announced TV series, which I'm also REALLY curious about.