2012 Reviews

Emmerich favours hoisting his camera high and dry to give audiences the best panoramic view, but it removes all tension from proceedings - you're always at a safe distance.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Cusack, with his one-of-the-guys face and his nice way with child actors, does creditable work as an Average American Dad trying to put things right.

Full Review | Original Score: B

2012 is the rare case of a bad film that I'm nevertheless obliged to recommend you see.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

Most of all, I liked the airlifting of giraffes to ark safety via helicopter and the bizarrely unreasonable cheeriness of the beleaguered survivors who all but shout "hip-hip-hooray" after billions of other Earth citizens lose their lives.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5

Action-packed entertainment builds around efforts, not to prevent the destruction of the planet, but to plan for the continuation of the human race.

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It's the end of the world as we know it%u2026 again! But hand it to Roland Emmerich, an old hand at cinematic Armageddon, for making the apocalypse such an entertaining ride.

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The strongest thing about this movie is the "this I have to see" factor. If only the story had the same kind of groove going as the effects.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

The end of the world movie to end 'em all, it turns out to be a sort of cross between the sci-fi camptacular When Worlds Collide and every previous Emmerich movie. Guilty pleasures galore.

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Plausible plot points, great special effects and characters we care about. That's really about all you need to enjoy this Apocalypse Wow!

Full Review | Original Score: B+

My enthusiasm for 2012 is not because I think it's high art with an important social message. Screw that %u2013 this movie is about pure spectacle, and it pulls that off fabulously.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5

There's a whole world of destruction going on in the film's ridiculously excessive special-effects sequences. But there's a whole lot of entertaining going on, too.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

full review at Movies for the Masses

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

2012 is well made spectacle. It's finely crafted trash. It's in on the joke, and it's laughing along with you.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10

2012 is reminiscent of yesteryear '80s shlock-tastic blockbusters -- total popcorn entertainment with ridiculous dialogue and impossible situations and special effects that will boggle the brain for a good two-plus hours.

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I'm curious, just a bit, about what goes on in the mind of Roland Emmerich. Does he know that he makes some of the best comedies ever written?

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As with "Independence Day," "2012" is what comes of hiring legitimate actors to hawk hokum. And "2012" certainly is all cheese on wry, but it's smart within its means as a palpable, if popcorn, lesson about parental and personal responsibility.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Gleefully over-the-top, this film takes the disaster movie pretty much as far as it can go

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

In the final forty-five minutes the movie starts to feel very long and played-out.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Here's a movie that's dopey, cheesy and sometimes downright silly. But it's a disaster movie. It's supposed to be ridiculous.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

If they had just put a decent story with these fabulous special effects, this could have really been something special. "2012" could have done without so many of its characters like those two guys on the Love Boat.

Full Review | Original Score: B-

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