2012 2009

Not my first time to watch this but I enjoyed seeing it again. I will say, however, that if you're gonna watch this, you simply have to disengage your brain and enjoy this for the spectacular, over-the-top SFX; that's about all this is good for. Seriously...it wasn't what I would call a "bad" movie, but honestly, the storyline was so outlandish, so preposterous, and so cheesy that really all this film had going for it was the special effects. And they were pretty awesome. Even if you're a fan of the "natural disaster"-type movies, this one was a bit of a stretch...and there were PLENTY of times that you just had to basically laugh at certain scenes (i.e. driving fast enough with cat-like reflexes to outmaneuver an earthquake in one scene, outrunning a tsumami-like wave crashing into your ship, etc.) Along with those roll-your-eyes moments, you had the sappy "for the good of humanity" stuff, the "evil politician" who was only interested in saving himself, the dysfunctional family falling in love with each other again, etc etc blah blah blah ad nauseum. Like I said, it wasn't a "bad" movie; it was, in fact, quite a "fun" movie...as long as you're willing to just roll with it, laugh at it, roll your eyes a few times, and sit through 2½ hours of really lame storyline. The icing on the cake was the "three ships" heading for the coast of Africa (dawn of civilization, anyone?) as the camera pans out to show a brand-spankin'-new planet earth with one continent. The biggest question now is, Who's gonna make coffee for all these people?

Enjoy it, laugh at it, roll with it. It was enjoyable. Sappy, yes, but enjoyable.

John Cusack, "Martin Q Blank" himself puts away his guns, and plays a published, but under achieving author, and separated Father of two, thus becoming the "everyman" for the viewer, in yet another Roland Emmerich helmed "end, O' the world" joint, that, far from being formulaic, turns out to actually be pretty entertaining. Joined by a multi faceted cast of past character and future lead actors, who were pretty much perfectly cast in their individual roles, ones suspension of disbelief is never disabused as they all plunge headlong into "the end of the world as we know it", but, not everyone comes out feeling fine.

Potentially problematic entanglements, and pugnaciously unlikable characters all get their just desserts, even meeting somewhat heroic ends, as we watch the usual familiar monuments and landscapes get twisted, frapped', set alight, or just plain "blowed up" with just the right amount of cheesy dialog to keep it fun and interesting. Danny Glover is stoic as the last President of the United States of America, while Chiwetel Ejiofor is the conscience of the worlds leaders, played against Oliver Platts pragmatic, but kind of a dick, Chief of staff, who has to figure out how to "save the human species" while, given the soon to be VERY limited resources, deciding who is worthy to survive what is soon to come. Amanda Peet and Thandiwe Newton play the respective love interests, one estranged, one slightly out of league, while Woody Harrelson does his "Woody" conspiracy shtick out in the literal woods.

All in all, a fun, entertaining, disaster adventure, with a hopeful ending for those who survive.

The movie is pretty decent - unfortunately that's it. The story is that of a typical disaster movie: Someone realizes that something is happening, governments keep this secret but prepare in secrecy, while everywhere in the world since of this happening, appear (but are played down). Some random guy, who has some kind of quarreled family finds out by accident, gets involved with one of the officials and by chance manages to get himself and his family saved as well, and in the end they get over the dispute they had, jut because of the experience. Sounds familiar? Well then, maybe because you've seen "The Day After Tomorrow". or "Independence Day". Or maybe, because you've seen 2012. What else do these movies have in common? Well, Roland Emmerich - seen one Emmerich, and you've seen all.

And while I am not saying it's bad in general, it's just not incredible good either - just one of the many (and there are even more of these), so it won't score any points with the plot or the story. On the plus side, however, even though it has a lengthy run time of 158 min (2.5 h), it will keep you interested till the end, it's not boring at any time and doesn't have lengths. Of course, you'd wonder at one or the other scene if that was really necessary, but other than that, it's an entertaining movie throughout. The camerawork is decent, but nothing to but nothing to brag about, the VFX looks stunning, but the story telling is quite straight forward. There's a great cast with John Cusack, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, Danny Glover or Woody Harrelson, but the acting - though decent and well played - are never really challenged, and don't give the performance that you'd expect them to be capable of; this leads to actually the children actors being the most interesting ones, because they just play the biggest and most believable emotions. But all in all, there is no chemistry between the actors, and this is probably due to mediocre directing. On the negative side, there's the question of how believable this whole story is. And to me, it isn't at all. Of all the scientists, both astrophysicists, as well as particle physicists only one guy sees a) the massive, never before seen sun eruptions, as well as the high neutrino concentration that just a few meters under the surface of the earth brings water to boil? And that's it? Of the tens of thousands scientists arround the globe no one else makes this observation? No one else notices anything wrong? And years later, when all the nature catastrophes start even Universities say "It's just a little earth quake", while whole cities where layed to waste with no prior indication what so ever? To me, that's a rather weak point of the script, and it really bothered me two or three times.

So summing it up, for every good point I can find, there's an equally negative point. This movie is enjoyable, it doesn't make any bigger mistakes, but that's just it. So in the end I end up where I started: in the middle! 5/10 Points.