2012

I have to admit that there was very little about this film that appealed to me. The idea of a big-scale disaster blockbuster starring John Cusack does not excite me in any way whatsoever, so the film had an uphill battle to fight just to get me interested. It lost.

Basically, the year is 2012 (meaning that the Mayan calendar is ending... why this would be of relevance to anything isn't exactly clear) and so the world is ending in th most cataclysmic of fashions. The Earth cracks open and tsunamis start destroying everything. John Cusack is Jackson Curtis, a pulp writer tho forsaw a similar scenario, and he must escort his ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet) and their children to safety aboard some government-sanctioned arks in the himilayas that will preserve the surviving members of the human race. Hi-jinks ensue.

Director Roland Emmerich pretty much just remakes his earlier film, The Day After Tomorrow, a film that didn't really need making let alone remaking. Emmerich continues to cement his position as the modern day Irving Allen (The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, The Swarm) - a master of disaster movies. Like Allen, he's also responsible for a more than acceptable share of lame and laughable epics that are high on spectacle and melodrama, and low on substance and audience-engagement.

Firstly, 2012 is overlong. Secondly, there's not nearly enough scenes of hectic destruction. I also couldn't give two craps for the characters... Jackson Curtis is set up for a noble, redeeming death but Emmerich doesn't have the balls to follow through. Instead, the film conveniently does away with his romantic rival, Kate's live-in boyfriend Gordon (Thomas McCarthy) - a man whose corpse is barely cold when Curtis sleazily slips back into his old place as head of the family. Boring!

That just about sums this movie up actually - it's boring and contrived. And at two and a half hours you'll wish the world really would end.

DIRECTOR: Roland Emmerich
WRITER/SOURCE: Written by Roland Emmerich and Harold Kloser, inspired by a book by Graham Hancock.
KEY ACTORS: John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Glover, Oliver Platt, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, George Segal.

RELATED TEXTS
- Emmerich previously made The Day After Tomorrow, a similar film about the world ending and those who survive it.
- 2012 was largely inspired by the non-fiction book Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock.
- A television series follow-up was planned, to be titled 2013, but failed to get to the pilot stage.
- Films, television shows and documentaries about the end of the world are a dime a dozen... look up 'disaster movies' on wikipedia for more information.

AWARDS
Nominated for a handful of special effects and sound design awards at various genre awards ceremonies.