THE GOOD
1. Amazing special effects...let's be absolutely clear, the end of the world has never looked this good. Unlike a lot of so-called blockbusters where it's nigh on impossible to see exactly how they spent their enormo-budgets, 2012 splashes its cash all over the screen like a massive CG dirty protest...it's huge cost (reportedly a gargantuan $260mil) is up there for all to see and it looks incredible.
2. Edge-of-your-seat escapes...despite being completely and utterly ridiculous, the initial dash out of California is one of the most exhilirating action sequences you'll see in any movie this year (so much so that it received a begrudging round of applause at the screening I attended...say what you will about Roland Emmerich, he's a showman.)
3. An attitude to science that's so cavalier and downright idiotic you just have to give it credit...So apparently the end of the world is caused by neutrinos from the Sun warming up the Earth's core like microwaves?...Crust chaos ensues. Bravo, Mr Emmerich, bravo! Such bullshit is to be commended.
4. The Vatican gets totalled...the only bad thing about this is that Ewan McGregor wasn't fucking parachuting over it at the time (despite obvious gaps in logic and reason, 2012 still comes across as 10 times more plausible than Angels & Demons.) Oh, and while we're at it - Hawaii? You're FUCKED.
5. John Cusack. Nonsense like this needs someone likeable at its centre and Cusack nails it...he's just cool enough without being too smarmy and you're with him every step of the way even when things get really, really silly. In other words, you'll want John Cusack to be your crappy dad.
6. Danny Glover IS the President of the United States of America... First, Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact, and now Lethal Weapon's very own Roger Murtaugh - who knows, maybe one of these days the US will actually get a black president for real! Anyway, Glover's great throughout - stoic, grounded, authoratitive...he may be too old for this shit, but he certainly doesn't act like it. (My prediction for Independence Day 2? Bill Cosby.)
7. The dog survives! This is a pre-requisite for any modern disaster movie, the principle being "who gives a shit about the death of billions of innocent human beings when there's a pooch on the line?" Admittedly, the scene in question isn't exactly up to the standards of Independence Day's amazing "dog survives nuclear-style blast in tunnel by jumping out of the way" sequence but hey, at least it's there.
8. It knows it's bollocks. In one crucial twist, the crust of the Earth moves 1000 miles thus enabling our heroes to get to their destination in a fraction of the time despite running perilously low on fuel...Only a film with an acute sense of its own existential ridiculousness would have the guts to try this kind of shite and get away with it.
9. Woody Harrelson is perfect as the conspiracy theorist/hippy blogger who implausibly knows every detail of the government's Super Secret Plan to ensure the survival of humanity...along with Zombieland, Harrelson's having quite a year, in a "token hick" sort of way.
10. It's not Knowing.
THE BAD
1. It's loooong...at 2hrs38min, film veers into Harry Potter territory, length-wise but doesn't really have the story to sustain it...your bum WILL be numbed. (The most perfect blockbuster ever made is Raiders of the Lost Ark and that's exactly 115 minutes including credits. Just saying.)
2. All that sub-Poseidon Adventure nonsense at the end undermines the spectacle of everything that went before...and did they really have to a have a "countdown to destruction" style finale?...As soon as that clock started ticking there was only ever going to be one resolution.
3. Forget the whole "Ark" premise at the end - the film should have had the courage of its convictions and sent its survivors into space...it's the only way it could have got any bigger.
4. Like any disaster movie, the characters are, to a certain extent, stereotypes covering off most demographics...the nationality/gender/occupation of each character seems to determine their narrative function or direction, and as pointed out by the excellent Skepchick blog, the ladies in particular get real short shrift.
5. Product placement is shameless...Sure, these movies cost an awful lot of money but does it have to be so blatant? According to 2012, the end of the world will be sponsored by Sony Vaio...
6. Even in tosh like this where suspension of disbelief is essential for Maximum Entertainment Value, there are just some logical chasms you shouldn't leap, namely in the final act, after the Earth's tectonic plates have been shifted beyond all recognition, when entire countries have been drowned and billions killed, apparently it's still relatively straightforward to get a mobile signal and divulge important plot information to the key protagonists. Okay, from an artistic viewpoint, the film isn't exactly The White Ribbon but c'mon, really???
VERDICT...
Emmerich's masterpiece of destruction & the biggest, bestest, most pedal-to-the-metal, balls-to-the-wall disaster movie royale with cheese you'll see this year. Think The Day After Tomorrow and then think 20 times bigger than that.
****
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