great visuals, cliché content

Rating: 8/10 (13 November 2009)

For its genre as a disaster movie, 2012 delivers what it promises: excitement, great visual effects (though over-stated as "digital") and suspense. However, it lacks the creativity and novelty expected in the 21st century. Unfortunately, the one thing that I wished for not to be present in a "global" disaster movie, was very much there indeed: the clichés about the different people that make up the population of our planet. For a film that takes glimpses of nations and people across the Globe, it failed to provide real "human" knowledge about the characteristics of different communities on the planet. Stereo-typed Indians, Russian "nouveau riche", rich Arabs, religious Italians, authoritarian corrupt Chinese, simple Tibetan monks and of course, the American Super Hero, make the main characters. The plot is weak as these is no elaboration on the predictions and scientific causes of the disaster other than the naive statement that the Earth is becoming a "microwave" because of the alignment of the planets. The symbolism of Noah's Arch and having a child-character by this name had a bad influence on the suspense element. In defense for the movie, one can say that great efforts were done to produce convincing visual effects and that it makes a good entertainment film. Perhaps I aspired for a more enriching experience that would relate to human intelligence. I was wrong. I advise those who haven't seen it yet to do so but not to expect more than "good" and "decent" entertainment.