2012

Plot synopsis:
In 2009, American geologist Adrian Helmsley visits astrophysicist Satnam Surtani in India and learns that neutrinos from a huge solar flare are heating Earth's core. Helmsley presents his information to White House Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser, who brings him to the president.
In 2010, during a chaotic mass protest in Vancouver, U.S. President Thomas Wilson and other world leaders begin a secret project to ensure humanity's survival. China and the G8 nations begin building nine arks, each capable of carrying 100,000 people, in the Himalayas near Cho Ming, Tibet. Nima, a Buddhist monk, is evacuated and his brother Tenzin joins the ark project. Funding is raised by selling tickets at €1 billion per person. By 2011, articles of value are moved to the arks with the help of art expert and First Daughter Laura Wilson.
In 2012, struggling Los Angeles science-fiction writer Jackson Curtis is a chauffeur for Russian billionaire Yuri Karpov. Jackson's former wife (Kate) and their children (Noah and Lilly) live with Kate's boyfriend, plastic surgeon and pilot Gordon Silberman. Jackson takes Noah and Lilly camping in Yellowstone National Park. When they find an area fenced off by the Army, Jackson and his children climb over the fence. They are caught and brought to the geologist Adrian, who has read Jackson's books. After they are released they meet Charlie Frost, who hosts a radio show from the park. After Jackson and his children leave, Adrian learns that the Earth is about to undergo drastic changes in a few hours, earlier than expected, with only four of the arks completed.
That night, after the military evacuates Yellowstone, Jackson watches Charlie's video of Charles Hapgood's theory that polar shifts, Earth Crustal Displacement and the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar predict a 2012 phenomenon. According to Charlie, anyone who attempted to inform the public was killed, including Jackson's NASA contact. After Jackson and his children return home, he delivers Yuri's sons Alec and Oleg to Santa Monica Airport. Realizing that Charlie was right, Jackson rents a plane and rescues his family as the Earth-crust displacement begins, causing a 10.9 magnitude earthquake, and they escape from LA by air as the city is destroyed and sinks into the Pacific Ocean.
They fly to Yellowstone to retrieve a map from Charlie with the arks' location. As they leave, the Yellowstone Caldera erupts; Charlie stays behind to cover the eruption and is killed. The group lands in Las Vegas to find a larger plane and meet Yuri, his twin sons Alec and Oleg, his girlfriend Tamara and their pilot Sasha. Sasha finds an Antonov An-500 and pilots it with Gordon, and they leave just as the Yellowstone ash cloud consumes Vegas.
Adrian, Carl and Laura fly to the arks on Air Force One. Knowing that his daughter will survive, President Wilson remains in the capital to address the nation for the last time while millions of people die in earthquakes and tsunamis worldwide. With the presidential line of succession gone, Carl assumes the position of acting commander-in-chief.
The group arrives in China. Everyone except Sasha escapes on a Bentley Continental Flying Spur stored in the cargo hold just before the plane runs out of fuel. Sasha is killed when the plane crashes, and the others are spotted by Chinese Air Force helicopters. Yuri and his sons, possessing tickets, are brought to the arks and the Curtis family, Tamara and Gordon are left behind. On Ark 4, the American ark, Adrian is contacted by Satnam, who tells that he is stuck on the Nampan Plateau with his entire family as the airlift meant for them never came, with a massive tsunami coming from the east, killing Satnam himself, his entire family and all the evacuees around them. Enraged, Adrian estimates that the wave will hit the arks in 28 minutes. The remaining group consisting of Jackson, Tamara, Noah, Lilly, Gordon and Kate, gets picked up by Nima and brought to the arks with his grandparents. With Tenzin's help they stow away on Ark 4. Due to the lack of time, Carl wants to leave immediately, but Adrian manages to use Satnam's death to convince the world leaders to let the people outside in.
As the wave breaches the Himalayas and approaches the site, an impact driver lodges in the ark-door gears, keeping a boarding gate open and preventing the ship's engines from starting. In the ensuing chaos where many people attempt to board the ships, Yuri, Tamara and Gordon are killed, Tenzin is injured, Ark 4 begins filling with water and is set adrift after Air Force One crashes into one of its supports, while also causing it to skim the hull of Ark 6 before drifting off. With Jackson and Noah's help, the crew of the Ark manages to regain control of the Ark narrowly before it fatally smashes into Mount Everest.
Jackson is reunited with his family and reconciles with Kate. Twenty-seven days later, as the waters recede, the arks approach the Cape of Good Hope, where the Drakensberg (now the tallest mountain range on Earth) is emerging. Adrian and Laura begin a relationship, and Jackson and Kate rekindle their own romance.
=== Alternate ending ===
An alternate ending appears in the film's DVD version. After Captain Michaels (the Ark 4 captain) announces that they are heading for the Cape of Good Hope, Adrian receives a phone call. He answers the call, and is shocked to recognize the voice as his father's (Harry). Harry tells Adrian that he, his friend Tony (whose left arm is in a sling) and several others survived the megatsunami and are shipwrecked on an island. Adrian informs Captain Michaels of this and the Ark heads for them. Kate thanks Laura for taking care of Lilly, and Laura tells Jackson that she enjoyed his book. Jackson returns Noah's cell phone, which he recovered during the Ark 4 flood. Lilly says that she sees an island, and the ark finds the shipwrecked Genesis and her survivors on a beach.

Tags: mystery, action, stupid

Review:
So to sum up: If you feel like turning your brain off and watching special effects and big explosions with a very shallow storyline then this movie is for you.
Emmerich certainly pushes "suspension of disbelief" to its limit.John Cusack and Woody Harrelson are the only actors that attempt to hold the film together, while Danny Glover and Thandie Newton were an utter and complete let-down considering their previous work history.
That would have and could have made this film closer to a 10 if I didn't feel like my brain was utterly wasted on this CGI and special effects bonanza.
You won't wince at how painfully awful this movie is, and you won't walk away knowing anything meaningful about 2012, but hopefully you'll help repay Sony pictures for the exorbitant amount of money that they and Roland Emmerich spent on their special effects budget.
Roland Emmerich, who's made such cinematic classics as Independence Day, The Patriot, Godzilla, and The Day after Tomorrow, was asked if he wanted a quintillion billion bazillion dollars to make a movie about the end of the world, and he said sure.
Or he could have said, "The heck with the characters, give me blowy-uppy thingys." This sometimes works: See Independence Day, a movie that made me feel pretty good when I left the theater after seeing it but that ultimately, frankly, was pretty bad.Emmerich chose the latter.
Sad and unintentionally hilarious.And you can forget about the plot, really, because most of it makes no sense anyway and would happen only in a Big Movie like this.
One thing many reviewers haven't been picking up on while watching this movie is the very slight tongue-in-cheekiness of the subject that Emmerich cleverly wove into the plot.
It's not that great either so ignore those who gush and tell you how awesome it is and rate it 10 out of 10.This is a film best viewed in the movie theaters on the largest screen possible to enjoy the thrilling sensation of cities breaking up, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.
But as the movie drags on, even the smallest character gets his "i have to say goodbye to my loved ones"-scene - which becomes quite annoying after you've watched this for the 5th time in a row.
But the one thing, he can't do properly is "good"-emotional cinema - which works fine in some of his other movies when his pathos-laden, goofy dialogue writing doesn't get in the way of the big explosions - it fit's, makes them funnier to a point.
His latest effort adheres closely to the formula established by his earlier films "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow"- in other words we get to watch a typically flawed-but-lovable American family (headed by John Cusack and Amanda Peet), along with a range of supporting characters, attempt to survive the end of the world.That's all there is to the basic plot.
But none of that matters since "2012" is exactly the film it was intended to be- a great big popcorn movie that offers big laughs, big thrills, and a lot of good old fashioned fun..
But, never fear, by the end of the film, they are cuddly little teddy bears that have brokered a reconciliation between their estranged parents.The adult characters in this movie are not believable.
It is a prime example of why some people loathe Hollywood excess.Roland Emmerich could have given every man woman and child 50 cents NOT to watch this movie and everyone would have come out ahead.
(Start watching foreign films; you'll be astounded to see real acting!) My only consolation is that I saw it for free on one of my movie channels and didn't waste a Netflix rental or money on a movie ticket.
It would be much more fair if they made just an hour of CGI effects, than trying to package it in this "movie".I didn't expect to see Schindler's List, and I love action flicks, I watched Independence Day 3 or 4 times, but this one is really disaster..
What you do get for your money is over the top special effects, with lots of good looking people having family crises & personal battles & they come together to save the world!!
Everything about the film is boring & the special effects don't save the movie.I was aware that I should not expect much when in all the trailers they only showed things being blown up or cracked open.
Even though there are a lot of fancy special effects to look at, it's a boring movie because the characters are so obviously fictional that you just don't care if they live or die.
Thankfully this will be Rowland Emmerich's last disaster flick...so he says.I think we've all had enough of this type of film now, where special effects take the place of story or plot.If you haven't seen it already then don't.
At times like that the acting became very juicy, making me think I was watching 'Titanic' instead.One point of advise: Do not take this movie too seriously.
While I can't really say I'm enjoying the movie (I find it's a pretty big bore, and the disaster scenes at the beginning were way too unrealistic to be even remotely believable), I have to say it's astonishingly "honest" in how the directors expect that the rich people and the arrogant Americans will survive, while everyone else will get shafted.
That may explain why "2012" takes a nominally more scientific approach to the cataclysm (neutrinos, crust displacement, blah, blah, blah), though even Chiwetel Ejiofor, as the president's scientific adviser, seems to know that it's all one big joke long before Woody Harrelson, as some sort of apocalyptic hippie fanatic, can pop his eyeballs and declare, "It's the apocalypse, man!"Mr. Harrelson's character doesn't figure much into the story beyond the usual wise fool archetype, though at least his bug-eyed mugging gives oomph to what is otherwise a pretty unremarkable disaster flick.
The sturdy B-movie screenplay by Mr. Emmerich and Harold Kloser actually picks up in 2009, giving time to introduce a few of the leading men and women who will figure into the imminent end, some of them likable (Mr. Ejiofor), others abhorrent (Oliver Platt as a blustering government bigwig), most of them just plain boring.
Mr. Emmerich is not entirely to blame, of course, though it's nonetheless a wonder that after three stabs at destroying the planet, he still can't avoid the disconnect between human tragedy and worldwide destruction that runs through "2012" like a fissure and keeps even its most realistic-looking disasters from ever feeling remotely real.
i was looking foreward to see this long awaited epic movie but...i was very disappointed aftwerwords,even in the first break i actually wanted to leave the room because of the ridiculous way this story keeps stretching the meaning of the word tension,i mean how many times can one escape at the last second from disaster??1,2 or 3times avctually in this movie it was i think 10times,it's just too much of a good thing witch took away all the pleasure one usually has to experience watching these special effects on a big screen,it took away all fun,i saw "knowing" a few months ago and it so much better even the special effects were so much better timed and just took you more than in 2012,it was like an avalanche of special effects well they loose their effect when used too much this is how i felt it,i was actyually pretty sad that they made a movie so expensive and mess it all up with a ridiculous story and totally unbelevable follow ups of last minute escapes,even my10year old son found this too much of a good thing..
I suppose it's hard to argue with the fact that this movie does look quite good and some of the CGI is impressive,however, the story is just so awful that it makes you throw your hands in the air and exclaim; ARE THEY ACTUALLY SERIOUS?
But when the clock is ticking down to the last minute or two of total annihilation, and people who are purportedly intelligent, thinking people, chose that moment to have an extended discussion of their feelings, GIVE ME A BREAK.And I usually don't mind movie that run over 2 hours because, sometimes it just takes longer to help the audience understand the human motivation, or to give the plot enough time to evolve logically.
Other than some awesome special effects and computer-generated scenes of apocalyptic devastation, this movie is a two-and-a-half-hour abomination.
Its the only explanation for the sheer tripe that we are presented with.I wont bore you with the setup,but needless to say,the world is on the eve of destruction from within.The film plods through all the clichés as our main characters go through the motions in a painfully uninteresting way.The CGI destruction of the world offers no threat or tension,it just happens in a really non emotional and tedious way.At no point in the film did i marvel or sit in awe of the spectacle of it all.Instead,i winced at the 2 hours and 40 mins running time and willed the movie to its predictable and boring climax.Some good actors do very little than pick up the paycheque,only Oliver Platt seems to want to have a go at having fun but alas,its all in vain.The film is terrible and Roland Emmerich does nothing to divorce himself from having a reputation for making terribly bloated and over sentimentalised garbage..
If only the vote drop down list allowed for negative votes up to -1000000000000000000000000000000.Waste of time, embarrassing, over the top rubbish, 158 minutes of my life wasted."Contains spoiler", more like spoilt my afternoon!I like action films and the occasional unbelievable escape/rescue, but this was happening every five minutes.I couldn't wait for the film to finish, even the special effects was over the top and unrealistic at times.I will make sure to remember the name "Roland Emmerich" in order to avoid such a poor film, shame on you people who voted this film higher than a 1!.
While the (mostly computer generated) special-effects are impressive at times, the chaotic script and the laughable acting-performances are nothing to write home about.2012 has all the ingredients of a traditional disaster-movie as we know it, and like I said the special-effects are good as you come to expect from a movie this recent.
I think they could have easily cut out a good 30 minutes or so of soap-opera esq scenes.The acting in this movie is very below average, to the point that its almost embarrassing to watch.
But if its special-effects you want, you will be pretty bored with this movie as well I think, because 2012 has little other redeeming features to offer.Director Roland Emmerich said that 2012 will be his final disaster- movie, and frankly this is a very good thing before his movies turn out even more disastrous then this movie.
Imagine, how much wonderful things could happen to the world - if money and time were not waisted on making of this film..
Everything in this film is so bad that no CGI effect can save it.Wasted resources and time of consumers, of producers and makers.
Now it is only waste and rubbish.Imagine, how much wonderful things could happen to the world - if money and time were not wasted on making of this film..
It's a shame because Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich can't direct action scenes to save their lives, and decided instead to write the movie to utilize every disaster movie cliché in the book since it was written in the 70's with the likes of "Earthquake" and "Airport".
How original, I bet he stayed up for endless nights and lost massive amounts of sleep coming up with that million dollar idea!The movie is also loaded with tons of unrealistic sound effects, like when the floor starts to crack in the supermarket, you hear a " tearing " noise.....hmmmmm......
The only way I can explain this logically is, the director is completely deaf, or just doesn't care.Danny Glover is in this movie, which is great, but his assistant needs acting lessons and might want to step into a NYC comedy club once in a while, since he obviously has forgotten what a "joke" is, because he is not funny....
Basically I'm not even going to make a joke about him, because I'd probably feel like I was making fun of a retarded person.This movie had an excellent idea, take an actual apocalyptic scenario from Myan carvings, and put it into action....
It's sad such an original premise of a movie had to come to such a silly fate at the hands of this so called director.Another thing I noticed was, when they were driving off in the limousine trying to escape the ground shattering beneath them, was the fact that his limo sounded exactly like an 1980's Ferrari GTO.......
It was just how bad this movie was, when they tried to show "heart" or "feeling" or "warmth." Or at the consistent "near-misses" for our, uh, so-called, "heroes." Or the number of plane dipping.Despite the sometimes good special effects – I honestly can't justify giving it an extra half star for that due to the overwhelming negatives, I will say this in the movie's favor: I didn't snicker or laugh out loud as many times as I thought I would.
To each their own, but I appreciate a movie-goer who appreciates film as an art and not as mindless special effects engine.And the joke's on you people.
This movie just proves that although Emmerich has all the money in world, and top notch special effects at his disposal, he goes and mess it up by making 2012.
Yes Im sure it will be a blockbuster, people around the world will go see this and the movie may even make a serious profit, and Hollywwod will praise Emmerich for making so much money...but thats about it.
The camera work is alright at times, though there are a few awkward switches between techniques.If you, however, are only looking for a way to kill three hours, and you have not seen a lot of movies like this before, perhaps 2012 is for you.
Don't spend 10 dollars on this, rent it on DVD, watch it on a big HD screen and huff a lot of propane, and this movie will be your favorite film of all time.It is a bit sad, because I must say that Emmerich's films in the past, particularly Independence Day, were quite good.
So, my advice is that if you are one of those people freaking out about the world ending in 2012, then watch this movie.
Acting is poor ( even Danny Glover just doesn't do the trick) and in the and you don't actually care whether the characters live or die (Actually for several moments I wished they'd all die so the movie could finally end).
I just felt that I lost my time and -What hurts the most- my money.Not even close to the "Big disaster movie I was expecting" no explanations given.
1% of the movie was the story, 98% was effects and 1% was kissing at the end.It doesn't happen often, but I was sitting at the cinema and watched the clock.
2012 is an okay movie if you haven't seen anything like it before, but otherwise - like for me - it's boring and not even eye-candy, because imho the special effects were not good.
I really should have known that the movie was gonna be bad when I saw that John Cusack and Amanda Peet were the leads, but I fooled myself into thinking that the special effects would make up for it.
I went into this movie knowing it would lack storyline like previous flicks Roland has directed, but I had hoped the special effects would make up for it.
Not everything about this film is appalling; the visual effects are stunning at some points - down right impressive at others.Unfortunately that's about all the positive points covered.The story steals parts from every other disaster movie, such as the family life from the War of the Worlds, scenes from Titanic etc.Every character is damp and pathetic, and at the end you want everyone of the main cast to die; unfortunately some don't.They made use of every cheesy line, painfully obvious metaphor and overused cliché I could think of.A truly terrible film, you have been warned..
As the physical signs of the end start increasing, one-time author and current limo driver Jackson Curtis is out with his children for the weekend and begins to put things together himself to get to a terrible conclusion.This was a big movie in the cinema and it continues to be so on video thanks to a massive advertising budget and like many others I was always going to watch it whether I fancied it or not.
I am sorry to say I actually did not want to waste my time writing a review on this movie, but feel it s my responsibility to make sure as many people do not have to endure what I did.
If you can overlook why the world is ending, this is actually an captivating film with some spectacular effects scenes.
The movie attempts to stun you into submission with out of control special effects and body slams you with unbelievable action sequences at every turn.It is a depressing piece of film and an awful way to bring in the new year!
The acting would have been OK if the dialogue had at least been mildly interesting - Woody Harrelson's portrayal being the exception, and at 158 minutes there is way too much of the boring dialogue to be had - they could easily have cut an hour.The action sequences are completely over the top which is expected in a disaster movie, but here the characters aren't on a cliff's edge the whole time they are for the most part over the edge yet somehow survive.Adding to the calamity is the fact that the internal logic is deeply flawed.
The special effects were the only thing that made the movie worth watching.