Are they good at making special effects... Yes they are

Rating: 5/10 (15 November 2009)

First of all why 5 stars out of 10. Let it be said that the effects in this movie are amazing. This and the idea of handling such a topic on film is what I will give the 5 stars out of 10 for. Why only 5 stars. My first thought after watching a movie about the judgment day for the entire human race was: "Thank god it's over". 3 hours of mediocre dialogues, 3 hours of people I have no background knowledge on, calling and saying goodbye to their families (which I don't know either) and 3 hours of what is supposed to be "on the edge" action, where John Cusack continuously survives against all odds (and when I say all odds, I mean ALL odds). When I sit back and think it through and ask myself, what they did wrong in this film compared to The Day after Tomorrow, which I liked, the answer for my part is, that none of the emotions shown by the actors in these situations seemed real. It simply didn't feel to me like these people where experiencing what I was watching on the screen. No matter how insane the situation was there was always room to stop up and put in a little joke or ironic comment, you know, to lighten the mood a little while the earth is disappearing from under your feed and you're watching probably several thousand people die in front of you. It simply seems ridiculous and takes you away from feeling like this is really happening. So instead you lean back and enjoy the special effects. In a perfect world this movie should have been split up into several parts where you could pick out the parts you actually wanted to watch. In this case I would say 4 parts would do it. One part just showing digital effects of how it could look when Earth as we know it comes to an end. The second part showing small scenes where random people call each other up and are "sad" together, 30 minutes of this, you know, to get you emotional. The third part should deal with the subject of humor during huge disasters and really go into detail with the way some people manage to crack jokes when facing immediate dangers which will for sure kill them. The fourth part should be random dialogues and situations between random people, like a Russian girl having an affair with a Russian guy and monologues on how much she likes her small dog or whatever. Anything really goes in the fourth part so simply jump in with random ideas which could spice things up. If 2012 was just the first part I would maybe give it 8/10, the 3 other parts takes the score down one star per part.