Review: 2012

You know, a long time ago, Roland Emmerich directed good movies. A long time ago, I predicted 2012 to be just outside the top-10 list for the entire year of movies. But like the Mayans who predicted the end of the world ever so wrongly (at least I hope), those predictions and thoughts seem like jokes now. And for this movie “based” on that end of the world plot line, it’s not really the end of the world that’s disappointing, but rather the final nail in the coffin for Roland Emmerich. His previous efforts seem like ones from a previous life; as 2012 is a loud, repetitive, boring movie. It hardly got anything right.

Just for the sake of comparison, I want to talk a little about what Emmerich did in the past, his track record, per say. In the very start of his career, he headed Stargate and Universal Soldier – two movies that didn’t make much noise but weren’t received or reviewed as too awful either. Then came his breakout performance in Independence Day – the first ever “summer blockbuster” and a launching pad for Will Smith. ID4 is one of the more fun movies you’ll see. He followed that with Godzilla, which I thought was pretty fun as well, The Patriot, and The Day After Tomorrow: another fun ride. But nothing was comparing to Independence Day at this point, and my hope was dwindling. Last year came 10,000 B.C. which I believe received a 9 on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 100). If that was what put Emmerich on the ropes after a short lived career as a good director, 2012 surely knocked him out. Hope for his career is gone.

 

Oh, Roland Emmerich...why even try with a plot or story? It turned out oh so awful. (Columbia Pictures/aceshowbiz.com)

 

One thing I don’t quite understand about this over-sized, overdone, ridiculous movie is the running time. It’s over two and a half hours long and feels a lot longer. When you really think about the movie itself though, and granted that creates a slight headache, it could have been cut down to two hours easily. But it was stretched out to full capacity, or full boredom, to include every stupid cliche and every awful attempt at a story. Let’s face it: it’s about the world ending. It’s about special effects. Show me that stuff, not John Cusack moping over his divorced wife’s feelings.

I mentioned cliches and quotes that are so, so bad they make you laugh or just shake your head wondering how a movie executive allowed that after the table read. Imagine every bad cliché you’ve heard, every one-liner that’s used far too much – they’re all stuffed into 2012. If that didn’t start to drag down the movie already, there’s other things that just leave you baffled. Woody Harrelson’s character was unbelievably stupid and unnecessary. The governor on television, with that awesome Austrian accent, was beyond bad. The movie was littered with little things here and there that would have been better if they weren’t used at all.

But you can’t just drop the story or the plot, unfortunately. I really wish they had, and just left Emmerich to focus on special effects alone. The idea itself isn’t that bad: people have been intrigued by the Mayan end of the world thing for years, and it’s a nice thought for a film. But that one aspect got turned and twisted into something that doesn’t resemble the end of the world, as much as it does a bad soap opera episode mixed in with a lousy episode of the West Wing. You, as an audience member, feel no emotional attachment to any of these characters, making the “tender” scenes quite useless and often hilarious unintentionally.

 

The calling card for 2012 were the special effects, and after a while, they got quite boring as well. (Columbia Pictures/aceshowbiz.com)

 

The last thing to be noted should be the special effects because after all, that’s what the movie is essentially about. There is no doubt that parts of this film looked pretty darn cool. The detail in the massive destruction scenes was fun to watch as well. But truth be told, after a few hits on the Earth, it actually got kind of tiring and repetitive. Large amount of water + ancient or historic structure = fun to watch. Not so much. The formula got used up quickly, and like the movie itself, I just kind of grew tired of all the action sequences.

Like Roland Emmerich’s career, this movie tumbled downward at remarkable speed. With a back story that was as cheesy as it was uninspiring, it left nothing for an audience to feel or care about. Cliches, bad acting, and other miscues made you laugh when you weren’t supposed to. But after two and half hours of well, boredom, I was glad 2012 came to an end. I can only wonder what way Emmerich will make the world end next time. It can’t be much worse than this.

 

2012: (out of 4)