2012

2012 is one of many 'end of the world' movies that have come out over the last few years.  At over 150 minutes long, it takes a shot at being an epic film, and while it misses badly at doing so, it certainly does enough to entertain and makes for a pretty good movie watching experience.

The overwhelming plot is of course is the total meltdown of the earth's core, causing massive earthquakes and tsunami's, leading to the eventual collapse and destruction of the earth.  In fact, the movie uses nearly 2 hours to show exactly that.  We see the White House destroyed, Vatican City collapse, the Statue of Christ in Rio De Janeiro crumble, and so on and so forth. 

Where the movie succeeds is in the fantastic chase scenes, where John Cusack and his family outrun, well, mother nature I guess......... and in the overwhelming sense of dread as you watch the 5 of them narrowly escape certain death after certain death.  Even though most of this is cliche, it's actually done surprisingly well.  The film consistently feeds off of our emotions, and nothing strikes fear into your heart more than children in peril (which is a constant theme throughout the movie).

Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, Amanda Peet and Oliver Platt all play important, albeit relatively minor roles in the film.  Chiwetel Ejiofor gets a major role as the geophysicist who predicts the impending disaster, and despite making mistake after mistake - is consistently the only one in the room who seems to know what's going on. 

Perhaps one thing I'd nitpick on is how quickly the destruction escalated.  One minute, we're having minor tremors and semi-strong earthquakes in California - the next minute, the entire San Andreas Fault is collapsing and the entire State is on fire.  Things haven't escalated this quickly since Ron Burgandy and the NewCenter 5 team got into a street brawl.

As I mentioned, 2 and half hours is a long time to invest in a movie, but I thought the filmmakers did a pretty good job overall.  The CGI effects are obvious, but I couldn't help but wonder what worldwide landmark was going to go down in flames next.  Most of it was, literally, unbelievable (I mean, who doesn't drive sports cars out of the back of crashing airplanes, right?), but it was also a mindless fun.  3.5 out of 5 stars.  Absolutely rentable.