Dvd
2012
Roland Emmerich likes imagining catastrophies. He already sent aliens to blow us up in Independence Day, a giant lizard to stomp us in Godzilla, and he unleashed major climate change in The Day After Tomorrow. Now he's taking inspiration from ancient Mayan history, which predicted that the world would come to an end in 2012. This will occur through volcanic eruptions, typhoons and glaciers. And John Cusack will be the taxi driver who faces it in our stead. Available on DVD in 2013.
Starring John Cusack, Thandie Newton, Amanda Peet, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oliver Platt, Jimi Mistry, Thomas McCarthy
Directed by Roland Emmerich ('10,000 BC', 'The Day After Tomorrow', 'The Patriot', 'Godzilla', 'Independence Day', 'Stargate')
Written by Harald Kloser, Roland Emmerich
2hr 38mins | Rated (M) | Content May Disturb | Origin: USA | Official Site »
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The Talk
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Flicks review
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2
To say that 2012 is the 'mother of all disaster movies' would be both a true statement and an insult to disaster movies. It cannot be denied that for wholesale destruction and death count this film has it all, bar the actual planet exploding like Alderaan being hit by the Death Star. But in doing so, 2012 teaches the viewer that gluttony is not a healthy virtue by any account.
So the end of the world occurs in the year 2012, just as the Mayans predicted. During this event, an Ordinary White American Divorced Family Man (played by John Cusack) fights to save his family whilst navigating a series 'talking' scenes (mostly people crying into telephones) which link one stupendous, special effects-riddled, scientifically-implausible, action sequence after another. Danny Glover turns up as the President of the USA.
It's hard to put a finger on what hurts this film the most: the fact that, at an unrelenting 158 minutes, your eyes actually get tired of seeing things blow up and irritating people perish, or that the film only serves up the same special effects and migraine-inducing sound design you've seen and heard before in far better movies, just cranked a few notches higher.
2012 definitely delivers what it promises: mass-death, destruction, mayhem, all white-washed into PG-13 entertainment. Anybody who enjoys this particular genre will get their money's worth but those with a nose for plausibility may find themselves weeping into their popcorn by the end.
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The people's reviews
57 reviews
Press Reviews
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Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
The mother of all disaster movies (and the father, and the extended family) spends half an hour on ominous set-up scenes (scientists warn, strange events occur, prophets rant and of course a family is introduced) and then unleashes two hours of cataclysmic special events hammering the Earth relentlessly.
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Christchurch Press (Graeme Tuckett)
3
The film is dumber than a bag of hammers, of course, but by crikey it doesn't hold anything back.
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Empire Magazine (UK)
3
Fundamentally terrible, but almost irresistibly entertaining. Its horrors get a tad monotonous in the mid-section, but it’s still a value-for-money hoot.
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Hollywood Reporter
Eye-popping special effects ensure that this movie will be a smash hit, and while it's entertaining for most of its excessive running time, the cheesy script fails to live up to the grandeur of the physical production.
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TV3 (Kate Rodger)
2
If you leave your brain at the door, and I mean LEAVE IT THERE, and grab a jumbo popcorn, this disaster movie’s CGI may entertain.
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Variety (USA)
The visual effects are pretty sensational, delivering the cutting-edge CGI goods auds want and expect. It will be hard to watch "Earthquake'' ever again after this one.
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