My review of 2012

One of my big problems with Roland Emmerich's films is that he uses all of this scientific and technical terms that there is no way that anyone without a bachelor's degree in science could understand. It's pretentious. He either assumes we're too smart or too stupid. "look how many big words I can use"

Acting/Characters: well, John Cusack is playing John Cusack just like he has in every other film that I have seen him in. even the good ones. And since this is a bad movie, it is a very bad thing. the rest of the cast was pretty darn lousy as well. I am still deliberating as to whether or not Woody Harrelson did a good job. His character was certainly the one with the most life to it. He was definitely the most interesting character to watch. However, I feel that he was overacting a bit too much for my taste at the end there. But whether or not he was overacting, he was still by far the most interesting character and the most fun to watch. That is more than I can say for anyone else. Everyone acted like they didn't want to be there outside of the big earthquake scenes where they just ran around screaming. I can understand why they didn't want to be there as it is a Roland Emmerich disaster film. 2/10

Plot: Here is the plot in a nutshell: earthquake, then dialogue. Earthquake, then dialogue. Earthquake, then dialogue. Earthquake, then dialogue. Earthquake, then dialogue. It goes on like this over and over again for 2 1/2 very long hours. Dear god was it horrible. I know that the disaster scenes are the saving grace of films like his for a lot of people. They are the one thing that may be minutely interesting in all 2 1/2 hours of this nonsense. Well here even they were horrible. The scene where our protagonists are trying to escape Los Angeles was one of the worst I have seen in a film like this. The effects were laughably bad and the whole concept was even worse. Plus since we have the POV of our protagonists we know nothing is going to happen since Emmerich wouldn't kill off all of his main characters halfway through the movie because it would end it and he knows how merciful that would be so he does not do this. As such, all suspense is gone from the scene because we know nothing is going to happen. Not that we actually care about any of them anyways. To Emmerich's credit, he does manage to have a scene or two that are actually interesting and engage the viewer however briefly. But for every successful scene there are 10 more that do not work in any way. I shall leave you to do the math on that one. 3/10

Screenplay: I do not remember the screenplay as it was so bad that I forced my brain to tune out whatever the characters were saying so as to make my lack of enjoyment of watching this film as minimal as possible. Experience has shown me that the screenplay is always the worst part of films like these. From what I remember, this is no exception. Who wrote it a 4 year old? No offense to four year olds. 0/10

Likableness: Like I said, there were a few bits here and there that actually worked and that I enjoyed. But the plot repetition combined with the horrible script and the laughable effects lead me to the conclusion that this film should be watched by no one. it was even worse than The Day After Tomorrow. It was way too long as well. Half an hour could have been cut from the film and we would still have gotten the full story he wanted to tell. But as I mentioned before, Emmerich isn't that merciful. 3/10

Final Score: 8/40 20% (S)
Tomatometer rating: 39%
Tomatometer rating if my review was added: 39%



TRIVIA TIME: 1. The President's first and last names are the same as the 28th President in real life. Woodrow Wilson's first name is actually Thomas.

2. In an interview by USA Today, Roland Emmerich has stated that this will be his final disaster film: "I said to myself that I'll do one more disaster movie, but it has to end all disaster movies. So I packed everything in."

3. The character Jackson Curtis is the real name of 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) backwards. Director Roland Emmerich is a big fan of rapper 50 Cent and wanted to name his lead character after him.

4. In the film, many cultural and historic icons are destroyed, including Christ the Redeemer of Rio de Janeiro, and the Vatican. Director Roland Emmerich also wished to depict the destruction of the Kaaba in Mecca. The idea was scrapped however, when producer and co-writer of the film Harald Kloser opposed the idea. He later stated that he made the decision because he did not want a fatwa issued against him by radical Muslims. (Interestingly to note, a fatwa is not an Islamic death sentence, as Kloser thought/stated; it is actually an opinion made by an Islamic leader or scholar concerning Islamic law.)

Pictured: one of the deleted scenes from the movie