Review: 2012
If disaster porn is your thing, you'll like 2012. If, however, you like to have something, anything plausible to suspend your disbelief on, don't bother with 2012. Not even the roster of normally outstanding actors can save it.
Under the premise that the cataclysmic events associated with the Mayan calendar are true, 2012 assumes that solar flares will cause tectonic plate shifts, scientists rush to save the world with a little over two years til D-Day, aka December 21, 2012. An earnest geologist, Adrian (Chiwetel Ejiofor) meets with a peer in India (Jimi Mistry, who rates lower in the credits than two brothers in their first role who can't act). Dr. Satnam Tsurutani (Mistry) melodramatically opens a hatch to show boiling ground water. Much gravitas and the requisite losing of cool at an official at a fundraiser, and "Call me Adrian" is suddenly leading the charge to save civilization. Said official, Anheuser (Oliver Platt), gets immediately set up as a Machiavellian plotter.
The cast roster is impressive, but no one, not even Thandie Newton or Ejiofor is capable of transcending the material. Accents are often as bad as Kevin Costner's "English" accent in Robin Hood. Danny Glover delivered a better performance in Saw. John Cusack, who usually delivers, seems to be uttering lines he's used in other movies. Mistry may be the only one who gets a chance show at least some character development, despite his low billing. John Billingsley's scientist doesn't even get a first name, despite his higher billing.
There are so many Emmerich-standard characters it would be pointless to list them all, but it's clear someone had a craving for cheap beer during the script development. Not only is there an Anheuser, but the requisite crazy guy (Woody Harrelson) lives on pickles and beer. Because that's so much more important that quality script development.
Roland Emmerich co-wrote the script with composer Harald Kloser. Kloser,with 50 film scores under his belt, only penned one other script, 10,000 BC. Emmerich loots heavily from his earlier films, but not Stargate, or even Universal Soldier. He steals from Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow bad, as well as Poseidon, and even the death of Princess Diana. Then there's the bad references to other, better movies, like Jaws.
What's frustrating is 2012 has the potential to be a great film. It skips over the dramatic meat to go for money shots without even bothering to try to build any feasible tension. For all it's about saving humanity, there's very little of interest in personal stories; everything feels so derivative, it's hard to muster anything other than boredom. It's like watching a copy of a copy of a copy; the form may be there, but none of the details that made the original interesting.
It's so enamored with its own extravagant effects, the story buckles. It is full-on disaster porn, as there is very little plot to speak of, and that only to piece together the action sequences, few of which were actually interesting. Even the blatant attempts to support the moral high ground of trying to save as many people as possible fails miserably. Armageddon, one of the most ridiculous plots in disaster movies, at least delivers. 2012 is ultimately just prolonged shots of CGI impossibilities wrapped up in a neat, unsatisfying bow.