2012 Review

[Mach6]

2 & 1/2 stars for 2012? Really? I'm kind of surprised that you & other critics (Ebert & Michael Phillips) have given 2012 somewhat decent or positive reviews. When I saw all the trailers & previews, 2012 looked like it was going be more awful than Transformers & GI Joe combined. What does Roland Emmerich do in his big stupid blockbusters that Michael Bay doesn't? I'll just wait for the DVD or Blu Ray so I can watch all the destruction scenes & skip the other "stuff".

[Eric Profancik]

2012 is positively brilliant compared to Transformers 2.

First, though both are 2.5 hours, 2012 doesn't need an hour trimmed out of it. It isn't padded with totally unnecessary pot jokes and wrecking balls subbing as testicles. Bay is a boy who can't be told no so he does way too much. He's lost all restraint.

Second, 2012 though positively preposterous, takes at least a moment or two to focus on people - those parts you want to skip. It tries to give you a reason to care about the characters - albeit shallow - but at least there's an attempt.

Third, that attempt is to try to make sense and tell a story. Bay certainly doesn't care about telling a story -just blowing things up.

You can't get too deep with either of these guys, they both tell totally ridiculous stories, and neither make a lick of sense. Yet when I walked out of Transformers 2, you knew you saw crap held together by amazing effects. The crowd all talked about how bad the story, the acting, and the people were. But when you left 2012, it didn't feel like a wasted experience. It not only had great effects but it had interesting characters trying to be noble, trying to elicit real emotion. You didn't feel like you just watched the loudest video game of your life.

It's all a matter of perspective, and if given the choice to go back to the theater and watch one again, it would be 2012.

(I doubt that makes any sense, but I'm at work and should be working.)

[cdouglas]

Agreed completely, Eric. Though I don't think 2012 is a great film (or even an exceptionally good one), it was leaps and bounds better than the likes of Transformers 2. The trailers didn't convince me that it would be any better than some of this year's other dumb blockbusters, but it was more engaging than I expected it to be. Roland Emmerich's movies may be silly, but at least they're coherent and sincere. The primary characters felt like real human beings rather than goofy stereotypes, and I could actually tell what was taking place on-screen during the chaotic action scenes.

[Dimwitted]

Basically it sounds like 2012 is the Earthquake for our age. Emmerich is our Irwin Allen?

[cavinsmither]

This movie is really excellent because it was express the real end picture view of earth. In this movie People can feel vanishing of earth when it was destroyed totally and there is no way to save world.