Writer/director Roland Emmerich is the king of bad disaster flicks – The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day, 10,000 BC, Godzilla. To a lot of people, his films are a joke. Because of the writing and directing styles used for 2012, you can’t help but assume that 2012 was done in such a clichéd manner that it was meant to be an over-the-top comical joke.
Instead of focusing the disaster on select specific areas – like New York City in Godzilla – 2012
brings the disaster to entire world. No location is safe. After solar
flares cause Earth’s core to heat up – mutating the neutrinos there –
our planets crust is being consumed by the liquid core, making all land
unstable.
Like most other disaster flicks, 2012
features an ensemble cast of characters that all end up interconnected
and together by the end. John Cusack plays a divorced author, Amanda
Peet (Saving Silverman) his ex-wife and mother of their two children. Danny Glover plays the U.S. President, Thandie Newton (Crash) his daughter, Chiwetel Ejiofor (Children Of Men)
his scientific advisor. Woody Harrelson plays the kooky conspiracy
theorist who’s predicted the end of the world and secret elite plot to
save humanity.
The
end-of-the-world mass destruction sequences are a blast to watch. The
special effects are fantastic – the kind that are meant to be seen on
the big screen. Add outrages escape attempts to those sequences and
you’ve got one fun movie. There’s nothing like watching John Cusack and
family trying to outrun a massive earthquake in busted-up limousine, or
running from a fiery explosion to an airplane taxiing for take-off.
If you go into 2012
knowing that you’re about to see a very long (158 minutes) – yet never
boring – action-packed, over-the-top unbelievable movie, then you’ll
have a blast. If you’re incapable of finding humor in things so bad
that you laugh, then you’ll hate it.
Photo credit: Sony Pictures
