Review of 2012 (2009) by Nicholas L — 13 Jan 2013

Rarely can I say both ridiculous and boring about the same film, but one spanning a long 158 minutes can achieve so much... in a loose sense of the word "achieve".

At 30 minutes in I was bored of the talking. The 45 minute marker allowed me to start ignoring the acting. 60 minutes had gone past and I had tired of the special effects.

It's a shame that such a long amount of time was spent easing you into the movie. You know, when they show you a normality and then there's a problem and the result is a new normality based on recovering from the event which changed the previous one... It works in a lot of films and lots of books, but the problem in this case, is that WE KNOW THE CURRENT NORMALITY! It is the norm today.

I was only too happy to walk away as the credits began to roll, and wondered at the cost of the effects and the "actors".

$200 million...

This is the price tag that film-makers put on:

- 1001 too-close-for-comfort escape scenes,.

- Terrible child acting,.

- Separate story lines crossing too many times,.

- Cheesy American humanity morality "stirring" speeches,.

- Nearly three hours of sitting on your arse.

I would, however give in that there are a few parts which I did enjoy [spoiler].

1. The way Jimi Mistry and his family get forgotten about and die. This is a great part of the film, for the fact that (in the general everything-going-to-shit of things) people forget to send helicopters to pick up their mates.

2. How the president gets utterly f*cked about by all sorts of natural disasters before he's finally put out of his misery by a bus-wielding tidal wave.

3. Fat Russian twins act like a pair of spoilt twats and the knock-on effect of teasing John Cusack's character about the apocalypse is that their dad dies.

4. The emotional goodbyes throughout the film. Some of these people who just drift on and off the set while the cameras are filming, just so happen to have some talent, when they're not being abused by flying polystyrene in front of a green screen.

My verdict is 1*.