They had all the money, actors and special effects they needed so how did they manage to screw this one up? Obviously they thought exiting moments were more important than developing deeper characters and that's why this story that had great potential stayed so shallow.
The dialog was always cheesy and none of the 'hero's' in this film really showed any real emotions nor did they give any of those speeches that give the audience goose bumps. Another thing that really bothered me was that so much was almost going wrong the whole time.
Watch 2012 Online Free Putlocker| Putlocker - Watch Movies Online Free. 'Cloverfield -Watch Cloverfield FULL MOVIE HD Free Online - Watch Cloverfield full-Movie Online for FREE.' Apparently there's an Ender's Game movie coming out at the end of Would be much more excited about it if I hadn't read what an ass Orson Scott Card is about. Nov 11, 2009 - Like all the best disaster movies, it's funniest at its most hysterical. You think you've seen end-of-the-world movies? This one ends the world,.
Every second of the film had a 'close call' which made the film seem totally unrealistic. Examples are planes taking off just before the runway collapses or driving just fast enough to not get hit by an explosion. This can be very cool if it doesn't happen 100% of the time and I have never seen a movie abusing this way of creating excitement to this extent. So to sum up: If you feel like turning your brain off and watching special effects and big explosions with a very shallow storyline then this movie is for you. But if you feel like watching a movie with a bit of depth then go and see something else.
2012 cost 260 million dollars and is 158 minutes long. At roughly 2 million dollars a minute, one might at least expect a thrill-a-second work of exciting entertainment, since one does not go to a Roland Emmerich movie expecting either art or deep meaning. Unfortunately, the many millions spent on this bloated, overblown 'B' genre programmer could not guarantee the filmmakers a good script with a tight plot and interesting characters. Emmerich treats his own screenplay (co-written by Harold Klausner) with a level of seriousness customarily reserved for the Holocaust or biopics of figures like Jesus Christ or Mahatma Ghandi. There is no plot to speak of - Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) learns of the impending end of the world and has to rescue his offspring and ex-wife from danger. That's all that happens in the entire movie - for over 2.5 hours!
By the 4th or 5th time we have seen Jackson and his gang escape death (whether by earthquake, plane crash, volcanic eruption, tsunami, etc., etc.) the whole thing has become so turgid and wearisome that one finds oneself rooting for the tsunami to kill them all just so the movie can end and one can go home. The thin plot might not be all that bad if the film were better-paced and more exciting, but Emmerich wants you to know that he is A Serious Auteur and that 2012 is an Important Film About Our Time, so every sequence keeps going WAY past its sell-by date. Watching this movie is like being hit in the head with a wooden plank multiple times - one is eventually stunned into abject submission.
Emmerich does everything at least twice, and his respect for his own material seems to have convinced him that 2012 could not have been shorter by one second, when at least 45 minutes of useless sub-plots involving disposable minor characters as well as repetitive sequences of cities collapsing, flames covering the sky, 1500 meter waves drowning everything in sight and famous monuments crumbling into depthless chasms could and should have been left on the cutting-room floor. By the time Jackson saves the high-tech ark containing what's left of North American civilization (don't ask), apparently by channeling Shelley Winters' swim scene from The Poseidon Adventure, any sense of awe which the sight of huge waves washing over the Himalayas should generate in the audience has been replaced by a numb wish that the whole thing will be over soon and a prayer that one's brain death will only be temporary. After watching a whole lot of cities get destroyed again and again, one simply becomes mentally and visually exhausted by the whole bloated mess. Surprisingly strong performances from a thoroughly professional cast are wasted on tissue-thin characterizations - but believe me, these performers earned their money just from being able to say the bland, cliched lines they are given with a straight face. Furthermore, despite the appearance of realism thanks to some technically flawless CGI, there is no blood or gore - there should be body parts raining down from the sky during the destruction of LA, but somehow no one seems to be on the streets. On the other hand, a lot of blood and gore might have reminded the movie audience that one is in fact watching a film about the extinction of literally billions of living things, but why should something so petty be more important than seeing whether John Cusack will get back together with his ex-wife and become a hero so his whiny, spoiled son will accept him?
In any case, what does it say about contemporary society that a movie showing nothing less than the destruction of the entire world is rated 'PG-13'? As far as the 'science' and 'facts' behind this utterly ridiculous bit of piffle, the less said about that, the better.
Of course, this piece of overblown trash will probably turn hundreds of millions for its makers and secure Emmerich's position as one of the top commercial directors of the day. At least if the world actually ends in 2012, all copies of 2012 will be destroyed. There is now a long, grand history of disaster films in Hollywood. The best of the lot have combined suspense with cutting-edge effects to keep your adrenaline pumping. The worst combine cheesy CGI with shallow characters whose deaths won't affect you much. Here's 2012, summed up: Look, some recognizable landmark! Look, a giant wave!
Do our intrepid Good Guys have enough time to outrun the imploding planet and foil a plot to save only the pretty, rich people? It's pretty clear what happened to bring us to this point. Roland Emmerich, who's made such cinematic classics as Independence Day, The Patriot, Godzilla, and The Day after Tomorrow, was asked if he wanted a quintillion billion bazillion dollars to make a movie about the end of the world, and he said sure. Then he took parts of each movie's script, filmed them mostly with CGI, and pocketed the rest.
Greatest movie! (A quick break to sum up the plot.
![World World](/uploads/1/2/5/3/125373891/232174351.jpg)
Apparently, the sun and the planets have all aligned with the center of the galaxy, which winds up causing the Earth's crust to break up, which then causes the tectonic plates to shift. Mass hysteria! Dogs and cats, living together! The End.) See, there are two ways Emmerich could have gone with this movie. He could have given us characters to follow whom we cared a little about, thus involving us in their plights, and mixed in some convincing special effects. Or he could have said, 'The heck with the characters, give me blowy-uppy thingys.' This sometimes works: See Independence Day, a movie that made me feel pretty good when I left the theater after seeing it but that ultimately, frankly, was pretty bad.
Emmerich chose the latter. Which would have been fine, but the effects themselves are wildly unrealistic and often take so long to set up that you completely notice how godawful they really are. For example and if you've seen the trailer, this is in there there's a scene in which the Sistine Chapel falls, crushing thousands of spectators. Because the toppling is so slow to complete, it becomes painfully obvious that it's just a film running on a screen behind people running away. Sad and unintentionally hilarious. And you can forget about the plot, really, because most of it makes no sense anyway and would happen only in a Big Movie like this.
Of COURSE John Cusack is divorced from his hot, bitchy wife (Amanda Peet) and of COURSE she's hooking up with a plastic surgeon who of COURSE winds up having had some flying lessons that of COURSE will save them all and of COURSE Cusack's young son will somehow save the day as well and of COURSE there is a Russian businessman who used to be a boxing legend and of COURSE he punches someone out. And of COURSE people say 'My God!'
A lot, because that's what people do in crappy disaster films. And of COURSE the president is black, because in Hollywood black people get to be president only if disaster is a-coming. At least the acting isn't horrible.
Because everyone just runs from place to place in an effort to escape the horror, there aren't any subtle, low-key scenes that would allow good actors to flourish. Cusack is good in general, but what the heck is he doing in here? He's usually so good at picking projects, and he chose this?
Oliver Platt plays the kind of role that Bruce McGill typically gets, the hamhanded, I'm-in-charge, Al-Haig-like politician. I can't even remember his title. Danny Glover gets to be president and does get the best dialog in the film, even if his role isn't a big one. Woody Harrelson, as a crazed DJ deep in Yellowstone is also a lot of fun, although he's not the kind of guy you'd want to sit next to on a transatlantic flight. Final verdict: Yikes. Yikes, yikes, and yikes. If you dare watch this travesty, you might find yourself laughing hysterically at things and this is important that were not meant to be funny.
If that's your thing, this is your movie. I managed to see this as a matinee, so I'm not out the $10-$15 that some people are right now, so at least I got that going for me. Best advice: Watch it for free at home on a big-screen TV to fully appreciate the magnitude of suck. I went to an advance screening of 2012 a few nights ago and I have to admit that this movie was entertaining at best and that's it. The whole movie is almost entirely comprised of special effects. Of course you'll see all of the lead characters survive scenarios that a regular human being would not. Some of the scenes are so ridiculously unbelievable that you want to laugh at the fodder that's being expected of you to believe.
Emmerich certainly pushes 'suspension of disbelief' to its limit. John Cusack and Woody Harrelson are the only actors that attempt to hold the film together, while Danny Glover and Thandie Newton were an utter and complete let-down considering their previous work history. You won't see any remotely Oscar-worthy performances here. The casting of this film seemed off and poorly executed. You could tell the bulk of the financial budget went to the special effects and not the actors.
The thing that I found thoroughly disappointing about 2012 is that it's almost entirely lacking of any interesting backstory or intellectual substance whatsoever. There's very little mention of the Mayan calendar, Mayan history, or any of the prophetic wisdom that has foreseen the supposed end of days. The fear, analysis, curiosity, and everything else you've ever wondered about this new mysterious year that is quickly approaching is almost entirely removed from this film. That would have and could have made this film closer to a 10 if I didn't feel like my brain was utterly wasted on this CGI and special effects bonanza.
They try to cram so many explosions, eruptions, earthquakes, and natural disasters into two hours that I might be a little desensitized to the real thing if it ever happens. After awhile nothing felt realistic or interesting about it at all. It's novelty entertainment at best and that's it. You won't wince at how painfully awful this movie is, and you won't walk away knowing anything meaningful about 2012, but hopefully you'll help repay Sony pictures for the exorbitant amount of money that they and Roland Emmerich spent on their special effects budget. Don't say you weren't warned.
I was well aware that this movie would be about over-the-top action and CGI only and so I decided to shut down my brain to stand-by and direct all available blood to the eyes and ears. A technique that works perfectly for classic Bruce Willis or Arnie films giving you 2 hours of entertainment and fun. Unfortunately this time it did not work. '2012' delivers so many low blows to a homo sapiens' mind that some kind of subconscious alarm must have been triggered that woke up my brain to avoid any permanent damage. Then the real suffering began.
You don't expect to get a good script with witty dialog and good storytelling in movies like this - and you don't get it. You don't expect the best and most convincing actors in the world in movies like this - and you don't get them. Woody Harrelson being the only exception. You probably don't expect the best editing, lighting, costume designing etc. In movies like this - and you don't get them. You DO expect overwhelming visuals in this kind of movies - you get them partially.
You DO expect thrills and suspense and surprises in this kind of movies - you don't get them. Roland Emmerich artfully manages to make watching the end of the world in monumental pictures a thoroughly boring experience. Because this film never touches you in any way.
The main characters remain shallow throughout the whole 158 minutes. Some are just not interesting, others are so overdrawn (Yuri, Tamara) that you just can't think of them as real people. The story does not develop and lead to something you did not expect. There is no flow.
Ridiculous action scenes alternate with pathetic, kitschy good-bye talks that fail to catch you because NO actual human being would ever talk or act in the ways depicted here. There is no realism at all in virtually any scene of the film so how could you manage to connect to it? But the worst of all is the awkward exaggeration in EVERYTHING shown on the screen.
It is nice to see a nail-biting last-second escape in a movie. Seeing your main characters taking a one-in-a-million chance every ten minutes is revolting. It is an insult to your intelligence. In this respect '2012' has set a new standard. It makes all four 'Indiana Jones' movies look like documentaries. Who cares for the laws of physics?
Just invent new ones if it is necessary to save the hero! Of course this is fiction and you are allowed some creativity to keep things going but there is a limit to what you can ask from the viewer to believe. Spoiler. My 'favourite' scene of the movie: Our heroes are on a Russian cargo plane heading for China.
The plane is piloted by one professional and a student pilot who has had a few hours on a single engine sports airplane(?). After having survived a last-second escape (see?) from the airport they are planning to get a refueling at Hawaii. Unfortunately the island has turned into a lump of molten lava and they have to continue their flight knowing they would not make it to China but go down somewhere in the open waters. The very moment they run out of fuel they discover that the Asian continent has moved 2500 kilometers in their direction(!) and they crash-land their aircraft on some elevated plain a stone's throw from the original destination!
![Dailymotion Dailymotion](/uploads/1/2/5/3/125373891/138244864.jpg)
Of course there is a group of helicopters flying by only minutes later to pick them up and get them to the secret base they were heading for. End of Spoiler. And no, this is not an exception. There are numerous parts like this.
It is just like I said: an insult to your intelligence. Believe me, I could easily list at least a hundred of flaws and errors made in this movie ranging from human behavior over technical design to mathematical chances - not even regarding the constant violation of physical principles. All in all I am convinced that it is for your own good not to spend your money on buying a ticket for this crap but find any other use for it.
Burning it is a legitimate alternative. At least that would save your time.