Movie Review #24 2012

2012 (2009) John Cusack, Amanda Peet Directed by Roland Emmerich

So Mr. Emmerich tackles his second straight film with a year as a title (10,000 BC and now 2012), his next project is untitled...may I suggest (the year 3000) if your stuck?...maybe you can get Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter to star? So he did The Day After Tomorrow, Godzilla, Independence Day, Stargate, and he even did Universal Soldier...man does this guy love blowing Sh*t up!

2012 is the story of a family trying to get to some government sponsored "Arks" before the end of the world catches up with them...like literally they are running from the end of the world...and it is always just a step or two behind them. It does kinda get old seeing the family repeatedly cheat death like seconds before an entire state goes under water or explodes...but what did I expect? John Cusack plays the father here and he doesn't really seem all that affected by the world ending and he is fairly optimistic that he can get his family to these Arks even though he doesn't know where they are half the movie and has no permission to get on them. Cusack actually is not believable as the dad of these kids (more like their creepy Uncle) and is pretty uninteresting throughout the film. Amanda Peet plays mom and she has remarried but it seems like the end of the world favors her old husband to her new one (Spoiler...get over it), and a wasted cameo by Woody Harrleson is worth mentioning because it sucks so bad (he plays crazy tin foil hat guy). Oliver Platt shows up as a...um...goofy White House somebody who has way to much authority....and Danny Glover does a reasonably good job as the Prez (he's no Bill Pullman in Independence Day though). Thandie Newton is also in the film, and she is hot...that's pretty much all I have to say about that because I don't want to disparage her. The premise of this film is kinda cool (The Mayans warned of us of a huge event that will cause the Earths poles to shift and thus cause the earths crust to move), so that's good, however the film is 158 minutes, kinda like Transformers 2 earlier this year...if you are going to make a film that long, how about a rewrite or three...I mean did anyone even look at the story beyond the aircraft carrier hitting the White House storyboard (which is pretty cool)? I lost track of how many times a plane takes off just before fire, water, smoke, or buildings hit it...I mean after hour two you kinda root for the lava...but it is entertaining enough to sit through...and there are a few moments that are cool (like the Dali Lama giving a kid his truck), so whatever, go see it, it is mindless fun. I marginally recommend it...but if you want to save a few bucks just go rent Deep Impact (better) and Armageddon (much better) erase all the scenes with Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis, and Will Patton (you know the good, well acted ones) and tape a Mayan calender up above the TV and you should pretty much have 2012 there.

(The Shawshank Scale 1-10) So the end is near...how about I don't waste 158 minutes watching a preview of that and go get some Ribeye. Again it is watchable but you can kinda see why John Cusack thought you were "Better Off Dead" at one point. (um it is an old 80's movie that is great...you young-ins need to brush up on your old Cusack films). It gets a 5.0 on the scale.

Food For Thought: I had a couple brownies because they go well with my Pumpkin Spice Egg Nog (for which I have to run many miles now that I drank)...Up next for Cusack is Shanghai which is about a man in Japan months before Pearl Harbor...Amanda Peet has the Jack Black driven Gulliver's Travels ahead.