When reviewing a film like 2012, it’s easy to be snobby about it and dismiss it as disaster porn, but I think that would be unfair. I knew exactly what to expect from Roland Emmerich so I didn’t have any expectations that it would have an intelligent script, have any depth, or be in the slightest bit realistic.

But it still managed to let me down, and here’s why…

The first part of the movie is as you would expect from any paint by numbers disaster movie…

A Geologist/Scientist/Astronomer/Genius discovers that something bad is happening to the Earth and has to convince everyone that his prediction is right before the Volcano/Meteor/Flood/Earthquake disaster happens and kills us all. The disaster starts very gradually before climaxing in total annihilation. But the hero’s of the film just so happen to be the luckiest people on the planet and manage to dodge every explosion, earthquake, fire, flood and falling building until the end of the film and then live happily ever after.

So that’s what I was expecting, and it ultimately delivered for the first half of the movie, but after that it started to drag on just a bit too much. The running time was 2 hours and 38 minutes and at the 1 hour 30 mark I really wanted the world to end.

A plot this simple really shouldn’t be stretched out this long. After 2 hours of death and destruction you become desensitised to it all and then you don’t really care who lives or who dies.

I couldn’t fault anything else with the movie though. The effects were good and the acting was good. John Cusack played his part with 100% enthusiasm all the way through, Woody Harrelson played the nutjob pickle eating conspiracy theorist hilariously and Danny Glover did a good job of playing an empathic president with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

So yes it was predictable, and yes it was probably disaster porn, but that’s what I was expecting and that’s what I got. It’s just a shame that it went on for so long.

Overall I give 2012…

6/10