2012 Movie Review

The 2012 movie review opinions are out this morning. As I read each 2012 movie review, I am reminded of the hype surrounding 1999 and the end of the world. We're all still standing which leads me to believe this mass panic is a great way to drive people to movie theaters.

The Mayans predict the world will end in 2012. Director Roland Emmerich is renowned for movies about doom and gloom including Independence Day in 1996, Godzilla in 1998, the Day After Tomorrow in 2004 and in 2009 we get 2012. The movie features leading stars including John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Amanda Peet and Danny Glover.

The 2012 movie review from the New York Times gave this doom and gloom flick a less than stellar review. Manohla Dargas of the Times states:

Mr. Harrelson looks like he's actually having the kind of good time stupid movies should provide but that this one roundly fails to deliver. Despite the frenetic action scenes, the movie sags, done in by multiple story lines that undercut one another and by the heaviness of its conceit. Humanity is dying, after all, as the television talking heads keep repeating, and while most of the dead are specks on the screen, Mr. Emmerich occasionally brings you close to the calamity.

Nick Chordas at the Columbus Dispatch wasn't impressed by 2012 either and was quite straightforward about his opinion. In his 2012 movie review, Chordas states:

The end-of-days extravaganza 2012 isn't just the disaster porn that the movie trailers and TV advertisements promise.

It's far, far more stupid than that.

Massive shifts in the planet's crust result in the leveling of entire continents -- yet cell-phone service remains uninterrupted.

Billions flee for their lives around the globe -- but the same half-dozen characters continually and randomly run into one another.

The U.S. president avoids being crushed by the Washington Monument -- only to end up getting smacked in the kisser by an aircraft carrier.

I could go on, but the bottom line is that 2012 is a very dumb and often very funny movie.

Whether the humor is intentional can be debated -- and probably will the moment 2012 arrives on DVD and promptly becomes a drinking game...

Colin Covert of the Star Tribune gave a positive 2012 movie review and stated:

Crowd-pleasing global annihilation is the goal of "2012," and darned if they don't accomplish it.

A big, loud, blow-you-out-of-your-seat blockbuster of the kind usually released in midsummer, it features all the stock cataclysms and characters of bygone doomsday epics. Once again we meet those familiar figures, the idealistic scientist, the pigheaded politician, the sympathetic and steadfast family man, and the obligatory cute females who exist to be imperiled and add love interest.

This time, however, they're a bit more interesting than the usual disaster people doing the usual disaster things. "2012" is a have-it-both-ways hip/square doomsday movie. It serves up slaphappy sight gags in the midst of pulse-racing action crises, handling the threat of human extinction with just the right combination of facetiousness and sincerity.

Every 2012 movie review seems to find humor in this doomsday flick. While I don't know if that's what they intended, many do find all the end of the world hype humorous. After all, we were wrong in 1999...