Review of 2012 (2009) by Tommy H — 09 Apr 2015

Roland Emmerich is a very lazy filmmaker. It doesn't take much to think up some scenario from popular culture that would result in a computer animated city getting destroyed, then watch a few 2012 conspiracy videos on YouTube and wrap it all up in cliches and hype it with the "made for the trailer" shots which is pretty much the whole point of the film anyway. His movies are always just passable. I think when a director is just on the line of good and bad that means he does have skill, but he's lazy so he uses his skills to sleep through the production but still make money. Emmerich only seems awake for the scenes that will be in the trailer. I've seen plenty of old disaster films that were great so there's no excuse for not trying.

But it is what it is and these kind of movies do have their purpose. Hollywood would go bankrupt if every movie they made was intelligent. Sometimes all you want is some mindless entertainment and that's where directors like Emmerich shine. To survive in Hollywood you need to be a shameless visionary or a shameless revisionary. It's the yin and the yang of showbiz.