2012

[Jomama]

OMG... this is so bad.. I cant believe they put this piece of shit out there and actually spent money on marketing it...

I've seen better bad B movies... I feel just a little dumber having seen it..

[Klaus]

So you did see it?

[Jomama]

Yeah my friend bought it on BR and I borrowed it last night... I lol'd at him for spending $20 on it.. :D Its 2 hours of "run/drive/fly away from earthquake/lava flow/dust cloud/tidal wave at last second to escape, rinse, repeat .."

[gigi]

yeah i watched most of it streamed online and it was just really good footage of stuff blowing up or getting destroyed by something. i will watch the whole thing though when it finally comes on a movie channel. watching streamed movies is sort of annoying to me.

[Trany]

Its like looking at a odd traffic accident, where a truck full of shit tips over on another truck full of shit.

[Chadwick]

The day after tomorrow part 2: this time you WILL be afraid of global warming...!

(did i get pretty close to the mark?)

[Jomama]

it was just really good footage of stuff blowing up or getting destroyed by something.

I disagree, the CGI was obviously CGI, and so hokey and not believable that it completely takes your out of a movie... All the car/plane scenes remind me of the old pre-CGI days of a fixed vehicle being rocked back and forth while a screen in the background is used to create the illusion of movement... It was so fucking horrible it had me lol'ing. All I kept thinking of was "Airplane" when they go get the Robert Stack from his home and he's driving back and they show all types of crazy shit behind the car... Bicyclists being run over, chariots, etc..


The day after tomorrow part 2: this time you WILL be afraid of global warming...!

(did i get pretty close to the mark?)


No... Day After Tomorrow is a fucking masterpiece compared to 2012.. Its that bad.

[Eric]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dd/2012_Poster.jpg
2012

I agree with Joe, this movie was garbage.

After Emmerich's "Day After Tomorrow", "Independence Day" and "Godzilla" I figured this was going to be another one of his movies where everyone is killed in spectacular fashion, except the stars will magically find ways to survive and it did just that.

It would be one thing if it was just an effects movie, but it tried so hard to have a political edge, and to try and warn us of the possibility of this really happening in a couple years. Pfft.

From an effects standpoint I thought it did some things really well, and other things just horribly. The CGI was great at moments the shots of the cities getting engulfed by the oceans, the giant explosion in Yellowstone and the meteors crashing down from that, the "Arks", and I for one was enjoying that whole "flying through the city as it's being destroyed" sequence. Basically anytime the shot was from a distance with tons of destruction going on and very few people/vehicles up close, I thought it was cool.

Anytime we were looking at the cars/campers/planes from the inside it was embarrassingly bad. I agree, it was like watching actors being filmed inside one of those machines you put a quarter into outside a K-Mart that bounces up and down. "Okay John Cusack, this car is going to bounce around violently, pretend that you're being chased by cracks in the earth and METEORS! Aaaand, action!" Cusack: "Aaah! Ooooh! Oh man! Ahhhh! Hang on! Aaaah!"

Characters were weak and underdeveloped, which is to be expected, but there were parts that could've completely been scrapped. Example: Chiwetel Ejiofor was a good character, he had some depth, was likable, and did a fine job with his role. Better than expected. His father, the jazz singer on the cruise ship was absolutely unnecessary. That whole ship sequence was literally 15-20 minutes of the movie that could've been cut. I know that the point was to make us feel closer to Ejiofor's character by giving him a human side, but seriously that could've been accomplished by showing him making a phone call to his father. And didn't we see his humanity with the interactions he had with his Indian friend & his family? Ugh. I think it was just an excuse to CGI destroy a cruise ship with a giant tidal wave (which was cool) but come on, 15-20 minutes for 54 seconds of "cool" is wasted time.

Step father, another wasted character. Save us the 20 minutes of him by just leaving Cusack and Amanda Peet married. Seriously, if the point of him is to show tension between a father and his son's newfound happiness with his step-father, why did the son so quickly turn on his step-father and come back to Cusack? Could've been good but it happened pretty much the second that the shit hit the fan, and then when step-father got crushed by the gears (oh was that predictable or what?) the son was like "Meh, sucks to be him. Hio! High five Dad!"

Additionally, Woody Harrelson's character was potentially the worst I've ever seen in any movie. Forced, ridiculous, pathetically stereotypical, idiotic, just garbage. Another sequence that could've been cut and replaced with someone or something worthwhile. And I know this is nitpicking a ridiculous movie in the first place, but how was Woody Harrelson's character broadcasting from a mountaintop when his camper (which looked to be the radio transmitter) was being driven towards and way from him? Seriously, didn't someone have the stones to say "Hey Emmerich, you know that makes absolutely no sense and you're batshit insane?"

Okay, since we're nitpicking this movie to pieces, are we seriously going to believe that a billion dollar "Ark" would be hampered by a couple pieces of twine wrapped around a gear mechanism? And the whole "we can't get going until that door is sealed!" argument, are you f'ing kidding me? This is a craft designed to carry, oh I don't know, lets say 400,000 people through a world that is anticipated to be flooded. It would be built like a submarine, where they could seal off compartment by compartment in the event of a hull breach. It wouldn't have a centralized point of failure where all engine and navigation FAIL because ONE DOOR won't close. Seriously, come on...just ridiculous.

/rant off

To summarize: the good: it built tension well. I was looking forward to the explosions and effects. I thought some of the effects were really good.

The bad: story, characters, close effects, overall CGI'y feel to everything, fake, ridiculous, forced, worthless characters, unnecessary story arcs, unrealistic technology, main characters are immune to death and destruction, and so on and so on.

I can't give it 1 out of 5 because I did enjoy a couple of the sequences...

2/5

[gigi]

so i finally watched the whole thing and it was bad :(
i think the only reason i sat through the whole thing is i love john cusack haha. poor guy :( what a horrible movie.

[Kyrillian]

I finally gave in to temptation and watched this last night. Overall I'm a fan of disaster movies. I didn't hate this but it was pretty funny how cliched everything has become.

I love how the happy ending involves the step father, who has done nothing to make us dislike him, gets grinded up viciously in gears. His wife and step-kids take no time to grieve before they fully embrace their returning husband/father.

After doing something like that the movie had no balls and refused to kill the Augustus Gloop twins that EVERYONE wanted to see meet a gruesome end.

Side note: I don't remember Danny Glover having a lisp in any of the Lethal Weapon movies (I'm too old for thisth shit), is that something you can develop later in life? He had a lisp in this and in Shooter.

This movie definitely had no reason being 2 and a half hours. Boon is right about the cruise ship part. Even if they wanted to go into it a little bit to establish Adrian's father, there is no reason to even have George Segal's character and his anti-slope racism. Also another reason this movie had no balls, he's not talking to his son because he married a Jap? Who cares if their kid marries an asian. .

So the movie wouldn't really commit to racism but followed the end-of-days movie (Deep Impact) theme of having a BLACK PRESIDENT for the apocalypse.

I thought the CGI was more believable than the handling of a limo under extreme conditions! Seriously they could have made him a Town Car driver and it would have been a little bit more believable than this.

I'll give it a 2/5. I wasn't mad I watched it, but it definitely can't be called good.

[gigi]

Danny Glover got the lisp after his mild stroke.

[Kyrillian]

Oh thanks for the info captain buzzkill.