User reviews

Give me back my money and time. Movie is very bad. Plastic characters, plastic decorations, plastic script, everything is a cheep plastic cellophane rubbish.

Filming style is borrowed from cheep Mexican, Brazilian soaps. Tfu.. All those CGI are just plain flying shi..t in a wind (with all smelly effects). I went to cinema just for them. Everything in this film is so bad that no CGI effect can save it.

Wasted resources and time of consumers, of producers and makers. If not this film, something beautiful, more happy or more productive could happen to the world. Now it is only waste and rubbish.

Imagine, how much wonderful things could happen to the world - if money and time were not wasted on making of this film.

I went into this movie knowing it would lack storyline like previous flicks Roland has directed, but I had hoped the special effects would make up for it. Though the effects did look incredible, the movie had absolutely nothing going for it otherwise. They were on a plane for half the movie and the other half they were saying goodbye to their loved ones over the phone; just garbage. I don't even want to waste any more of my time writing about this movie. I expected more from this movie, but this was just another attempt by Hollywood to capitalize off of people's potential fears. I just hope this movie doesn't give the crazies who believe this will happen any more justification. Do yourself a favor and don't go see this movie; wait for it on DVD.

Possibly the largest collection of clichés ever. Not one single scene that hasn't been seen before in similar movies. Emmerich keeps copying his own disaster movies and the copies are becoming very pale now. Uninspired acting by Cusack, Platt, Glover and others. Harrelson's performance is way over the top. He is not at all funny but I don't even know whether he was meant to be funny. The plot and action scenes are not at all credible. Even within the context of the movie everything is much too unlikely. The movie had a lot of potential but was never on track right from the beginning. It's a total waste of time and money. It will take a lot of convincing to make me watch another Emmerich movie.

The movie 2012 is (obviously) based around the popular myth that the earth will perish after 21-12-2012, but this movie certainly does not boost the myth's credibility. While the (mostly computer generated) special-effects are impressive at times, the chaotic script and the laughable acting-performances are nothing to write home about.

2012 has all the ingredients of a traditional disaster-movie as we know it, and like I said the special-effects are good as you come to expect from a movie this recent. The only significant difference with this movie is that this time the disaster takes place globally.

The movie suffers from overly dramatic scenes that drag on far too long and have no appeal what so ever. I think they could have easily cut out a good 30 minutes or so of soap-opera esq scenes.

The acting in this movie is very below average, to the point that its almost embarrassing to watch. No matter what the situation, the cast always seems very unenthusiastic in their roles and the sometimes plain uninspired dialog doesn't exactly help either. I think the movie would have worked out a lot better if they would have taken a more adventurous approach with the story. Now 2012 turned out like a movie that relies too much on special-effects. But if its special-effects you want, you will be pretty bored with this movie as well I think, because 2012 has little other redeeming features to offer.

Director Roland Emmerich said that 2012 will be his final disaster- movie, and frankly this is a very good thing before his movies turn out even more disastrous then this movie. 2012 is a very mediocre and in the end forgettable film.

Once stuff stops blowing up, the movie has plenty of time (way too much time) to reveal how mindless and cliché-ridden it is. Frankly, the last half-hour or so of picture actually plays like a parody, with not one but two ticking clock countdowns.

Criminy!

Why on earth would you make a movie like this two and a half hours long? What could be thinking? Why give the audience so much "down" time to ponder all the various idiocies and atrocious dialogue herein? This movie truly gets worse as it goes along, which you don't see every day. So... I guess that's something.

Writing a review of this worthless movie would even be too much effort. This is total crap. The most impossible things happened, cliché after cliché. I just write this to warn everybody out there NOT to watch this movie. I've just watched it, and am much too frustrated to think clear. A shotgun pointed to my head would be the only way to get rid of my frustration at the moment.

I'm just happy I've downloaded the movie, because going to the cinema would be the worst €5,- ever spent. There are just so much impossibilities in this movie, writing a review would just take me as much time as watching the movie. So, this was a waste of what used to be perfectly usable bandwidth, not to mention the devaluation of my TV.

Lol@myself. After a few months I see this review again and decided to mix a bit of nuance into it. First, I gave it 3 stars instead of one. That's for the visual effects that aren't that bad. The story however is still one of the flattest, nothing-containing ones ever.

Some explanation is needed for those who did not see the movie. You do not get to know the personages anyhow, they remain flat and anonymous. The acting is just bad. Why is there suddenly a romance that did not grow on any way out of a divorce full of irritation to each other? 'OH, my beloved husband is dead, let's just kiss with my ex-husband who I have hated for years?'

So many things that happen are so just NOT possible. The coincidence is just totally over it's head. By the way, I don't write English essays often so please excuse me for English is not my main language, if I do make some mistakes don't mind that too much. I still strongly advise you not to watch this movie since it is so bad that it probably is the only way to get even a brain-dead zombie annoyed.

I went to see this film yesterday in my local theater in Belgium. After 10000 B.C. I didn't expect much, just to be entertained, sorry Emmerich but you failed.

This movie just has one cliché after another, which is not necessarily bad if it's fun. But it was boring, the suspense-scenes were to chaotic and hectic to enjoy it. Luckily the CGI was good so it didn't look ugly.

The main problem was, you don't get connected with the characters, so you don't care what happens to them. Hence, you just sit and watch, but you're never on the tip of your seat in suspense.

Luckily, the actors try to make as much of their characters as possible. Chiwetel Eijofor stands out by far, the only scene that you're emotionally involved is with him halfway the film.

I believe, if they held Emmerich back just a little bit it would have been much more suspenseful. 2012 also should have been 20 minutes shorter, it just keeps going along.

But sometimes it's entertaining, drink a couple of beers before you watch it and you'll possibly be entertained. Overall, I give this film 3/10

I've seen most of Emmerich's films. Stargate, Independence day, and The day after Tomorrow we're fun, enjoyable blockbuster films. I enjoyed The Patriot, hell even Godzilla as fun in a way. After seeing 10 000 BC I felt he lost his touch.

I did give him another chance with 2012 but he failed to deliver. I've never seen so many sappy clichés in one film. Some of the characters are more annoying than funny. The drama isn't believable at all.

Still I have to say, the visuals are stunning most of the time. But the story slowly gets off it feet and comes to a climax that is disappointing.

Yes, the graphics were very good, but so many millions of dollars cannot make up for a rubbish movie. It began to get so desperate for nail biting moments, scenes in aircrafts seemed to repeat themselves with eerie deja vu and most other scenes were complete contradictions of facts given earlier in the movie or completely defying the laws of physics. Even the acting was mediocre, with unrealistic 'final goodbye' scenes and general human interaction. Had the potential to be a really good 'make you think' film. Turned out to be a heap of rubbish, haven't seen a cinema audience stand up and leave so quickly in a long time! Trying to see 2012 seriously and not as a boring comedy is like trying to watch Lord of the Rings as a historical documentary. Very poor.

Would somebody PLEASE, for the sake of good movie making, take the directors chair away from Roland Emmerich. Along with Shia Labeouf, Emmerich ranks as one of the two most inexplicable people coming out of Hollywood in my entire lifetime. All they would have to do is get together for a project and "Plan 9 from Outer Space" will no longer be the worst movie ever made.

To be honest, I did not even know that this film was directed by him at first. But it didn't take long before it became obvious who was behind the camera. It had the same warm fuzzy feeling that all other Emmerich movies have, yet still manages to fail at making an emotional connection with the viewer. He just puts a few basic dramatic elements together, adds a shallow attempt at political commentary, dubs in some melodramatic music, then pours on the special effects. That in a nutshell is the official Emmerich formula (also see Independence Day, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow).

As for the characters, there are basically four types in the majority of his films. The first three are unbelievable a-holes in power, cool old men who are fathers of the protagonists and crazy, but intelligent nut cases. Most others fall into the third category as passionate and sensitive wimps who always do just the right thing even if it is completely stupid. Makes me feel all furry inside just thinking about it.

If I had to say anything positive about 2012, it would be that it is at least better than Godzilla. But not by much.

Totally nonsensical movie. I gave this movie 3/10 just because of the special effects of this movie. The movie did not have any story sense and all the characters seemed very weak. I am not sure what script writer was thinking when he was writing the dialogues of the characters while they were in grave danger they were sounding like they are out on some kind of adventure ride and everybody knew they are going to make it and there was no sign of doubt in anybody's mind which made the whole plot very weak. Also there were some scenes which actually disrespect certain countries and their beliefs. Overall a total non-sense movie. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS C-grade movie.

I like a disaster movie as much as the next person, but this one is too much. The scenes involving the John Cusack character escaping from California and later Yellowstone are so absurd that suspension of disbelief is impossible. I could pick any number of things in this movie that are absurd beyond belief. Driving his limo *through* a collapsing skyscraper as it falls? Oh, come on!

For any movie to really work, you have to be able to believe what is happening on some level. But Emmerich has gone too far in the pursuit of the "Wow!" factor and the whole thing almost seems like a spoof at time.

And the sad thing is, it didn't need to be so over-the-top and it still could have worked.

I was warned by several people that this movie was all special effects and very little substance. And how true those warnings were.

Admittedly I did not see this on the big screen and I'm sure it probably works in the cinema better than on TV. Even so, I can still appreciate the special effects are excellent.

The storyline though is the usual end of the world fight for survival and this seems to be a subject that Hollywood thinks we cannot get enough of. But sorry Hollywood, I've had enough of it! Paper thin characters who I had no connection with and couldn't care less if they lived or died. Unbelievable last second escapes from death and a running time that is about 1 hour too long.

Disappointing.

Really the only thing I can recommend about this film is the special effects, especially a spectacular sequence of the destruction of Los Angeles. That part of the film is a technical masterpiece (and it's what they showed in the trailer for good reason). The first half of this movie is watchable just because of the special effects. Once you get to the halfway point, the effects start to slip a little bit (I felt the ice and water effects weren't that good) and once the effects go, the film goes.

The story and characters are all bland clichés. You've got a several people trying to save their broken families and coming together or saving each other at the end, which has been done a billion times. You have the passionate scientist who cares about people against the dickish politician, which has been done a billion times. You have a bunch of landmarks getting destroyed, which looks cool, but it's been done a billion times. And you have arguments of humanity vs. survival which have been done a billion times, and much better than they're done here.

When there are no special effects, there are one of two possible things going on. The first is broken families trying to survive (yawn). And the second is politicians arguing. Because when I think cataclysmic destruction of the world... my first thought is C-SPAN, and all the excitement of... watching senators, scientists, and yes-men getting annoyed with each other, making veiled threats, passionate speeches about what the other guy is doing wrong, and yelling about principles and matters of procedure which no one else really cares about.

In all, I was really bored by this and the political BS just got on my nerves. It's really not an interesting movie. And I did start to nod off towards the end when it got REALLY stupid (they have the happy ending that defies all logic, just to have a happy ending).

I could go into more detail, but I really just thought it was boring, especially after the half- way mark when the special effects started to look a little shabbier.

3/10 - If you want to see some cool effects sequences, give it a look. Otherwise, it's just really dull.