Perhaps one of the most overhyped movies of the year, 2012 tells the story about how mankind faces the mega disaster hitting earth due to the impact of solar flare. Yes, this version of ‘end of the world’ is not caused by global warming due to greenhouse effect whatsoever. So, those who love to litter the street with garbage would not be blamed because the culprit is the sun itself.
Watching this movie reminds me of Transformers – Revenge of the Fallen. Lots of destructions throughout the movie, and a crap storyline with so-so cast performances.
People will see giant tsunamis, devastating earthquakes, volcano eruptions, and assassinations too to spice up the plot. As always, there’s a family caught up in the middle of all these pandemoniums – a not-so-ideal family to be precise – and also some scientists involved to perhaps, bolster the scientific ground of the plot. This too, reminds me of Deep Impact, Armageddon, The Day The Earth Stood Still, and probably lots of other disaster movies. Afterwards, we are presented by a seemingly impossible luck of the main characters while enduring the entire catastrophic events. Watching Jackson Curtis dodging one calamity over another is like watching Neo dodging the bullets, minus the slow motion. Overall, it got the same template like most other disaster films which definitely failed to impress me.
Cast performances are average because acting doesn’t seem to be what the movie was trying to sell. Just look scared, look sad, look desperate, a bit of nasty and mean (like Carl Anheuser), and everything will be sufficient.
In the end, the producer wins. The movie has been pretty successful at the box office and a TV series is even planned to well, be the sequel following the events in 2012. To me, this is just another disaster movie, and personally, I doubt that such solar flares would be able to create such a mess on this planet. Even if it will, nobody will remember what I say because people probably busy running around trying to save themselves.
Final rating: 6.0
By the way, I’d rather the earth demolished by the zap from Vogon Constructor Fleet to make way for a hyperspatial express route. It’s tidy and efficient with minimal visual effects (and minimal moments of sufferings, too).
Credits:
Directed by Roland Emmerich
Written by Harald Kloser & Roland Emmerich
Starring: John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson.
Release year: 2009
IMDB Rating: 6.4
