My eyes almost rolled out of my head.

Rating: 3/10 (17 March 2013)

You know that one scene in Independence Day where the family barely escapes a wall of fire inside a giant tunnel, and just as you think the beloved Golden Retriever is going to die, it leaps to safety?
Stretch that scene out over 2 and a half hours, and that's my reaction to 2012.
Maybe because I've waited until 2013 to watch this movie that I'm a bit jaded. But to call this movie "awfully entertaining" is an overstatement.
I sat and watched this for free on TV because it was the only thing on. I saw Danny Glover and thought, "oh, I didn't know he was in this." I said that to myself about five more times. The cast is solid. The acting and characters, however, are not. I'm not bloodthirsty, but at some point I did catch myself disappointed when some of the most annoying and selfish little bratty kids survived. John Cusack achieved the award for Most Apathetic and Out of Touch father, while Thandie Newton received an accolade for Most Underwhelming.
**Spoiler** Really. Like, her dad dies, and she let's out a poorly time sob, and that's literally the last time she sheds a tear. She, like most of these characters, is then back to continuously droning on about themselves and cracking jokes like billions of people aren't suffering and dying slow deaths while she has the chance at life(one could almost make an analogy that Americans do that daily). **end spoiler.**
And the Russian guy! I was waiting for Will Ferrell to come out and ask him if he had Peanut Butter in his mouth. Its that bad.
The effects, while good, are beat into your head so much, you will watch with child-like glee and enthusiasm as the waves destroy the world. Whoosh! Splash! Boom! Yay! To sum it up with another comparison-- Its like the old school versions of Mortal Kombat where squeamish people and concerned parents would go into settings and turn off the "blood." You'd just be kicking each other in the face, throwing swords at each other, over and over, yet no blood. I don't get how a world ends, and 99% of humanity is wiped out, yet I don't see a drop of blood, a dead body, anything to imply something catastrophic is going on.