Should be renamed "2,012 daring escapes by aeroplane!"

Rating: 5/10 (12 December 2009)

First off, the best thing about this movie are the CGI effects. I take off my metaphorical hat to the people involved in the creation of the visual goodness on screen. They went to a great deal of effort and, without a shadow of a doubt, their work is the most creative thing about this film. Well done guys! The 5/10 I gave this film is entirely down to your efforts.
Now the not so good. Where to start...
Firstly, if you're expecting a drama about people coping with the end of the world you will be disappointed. This movie focuses entirely on one family and their efforts to survive. Of course, they are a dysfunctional family. That way the scriptwriters can perform what I'll laughingly refer to as "character development" in order to get the family back in order again by the end of the film.
Apart from the family, the rest of the cast are limited to playing awful stereotypical roles such as Russian Oligarch, spoilt rich kids, noble scientist, holy man, crackpot conspiracy theorist etc etc. You get the idea. These other characters, unlike the family, are not "developed" during the film. In fact, their sole purpose appears to be to die at appropriate moments during the film once their usefulness to the family is at an end.
Essentially, the movie is one long chase scene, with the family narrowly avoiding death (usually by plane) with increasingly foolish scenes of "nail-biting tension". But realistically, once you've seen them avoid death by taking off in a plane for the THIRD time, you begin to wonder just how flimsy the script was in order that they had to repeat essentially the same scene again and again.
Oh yeah, call me nerdy if you must, but I imagine that, when the runway drops out from beneath your plane into a gaping chasm there would be a certain amount of suction trying to pull your plane in. Guess that one (repeatedly) escaped the physics advisors attention.
Though the film trailers make a big thing of the 2012 Mayan apocalypse, this is only touched on briefly during the film. It's essentially a marketing gimmick designed to draw in impressionable fools. Likewise, the "science" explanation behind the cause of the disaster is only touched on vaguely and then forgotten. It's almost as if they were embarrassed to let the audience dwell on the absurdity of it for too long.
The dialogue is also some of the most awful I've heard in a long time, but it's the lack of intelligence behind it that insults me the the most. For instance, in one scene the President of the US lets his daughter in on the disaster looming, telling her "Only 6 people in the entire administration know what I'm about to tell you!" Yeah, right. That would be the 6 people other than the tens of thousands of rich billionaires who are funding the project, apparently, and who all seem to know what is going on. Yep, that would be a really easy secret to keep.
And whilst we are on the subject of who gets to go aboard the ships and all, just what chimp thought that one up as a believable scenario? That thousands of rich idiots would be the best gene-pool for rebuilding human society? If our species really was that shallow then we honestly wouldn't deserve to survive the apocalypse.
So in summary, all I can say is, watch the movie (if you must) for the effects, but don't expect either good characterisations or dialogue, let alone a sensible plot. I recommend several stiff drinks beforehand, and probably it's a good idea to smuggle a bottle into the cinema with you, just to take the edge off. You'll need it before the end..