It's easy to mock throwaway blockbusters like 2012, but as enthralling, mindless entertainment, the film is difficult to fault.
1 Comment
11/12/09
2012 (2009)
27
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:33
Fresh:9
Rotten:24
Average Rating:4.7/10
Consensus: Roland Emmerich's 2012 provides plenty of visual thrills, but lacks a strong enough script to support its massive scope and inflated length.
Australian Rating: TBC
Genre: Action/Adventure
Australian Theatrical Release:
Nov 12, 2009 Wide
US Box Office: $165,790,127
Synopsis: Roland Emmerich has given movie watchers several apocalyptic films in the past in INDEPENDENCE DAY and THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, and he offers another look at the end of the world in 2012. This... [More]
Starring: John Cusack, Chjwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt
Director: Roland Emmerich
Reviews for 2012
1 - 19 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Top CriticWow special effects and a top supporting cast can’t override the numbing length of this best-of disaster movie blockbuster.
11/11/09
Top CriticIf you’re the kind of movie goer who will happily munch popcorn at the sight of the apocalypse, 2012 will do the trick just nicely. And nastily.
11/11/09
Top CriticIt's big and cheesy and if you're in the mood for a dose of exaggerated end-of-world chaos, this is the popcorn movie for you. Roland Emmerich has gleefully combined every possible disaster extreme with child-like enthusiasm: massive visual effects
11/11/09
Top CriticThis movie is a disaster. At least it would be if it didn't fall into the "so bad it's good" category.
11/08/09
Top CriticIt’s easy to scoff at the over-reliance of CGI in contemporary cinema but for a film like this it’s part and parcel of the whole, and computer generated effects have never before been used as spectacularly.
11/04/09
Top CriticTerrible; wonderfully terrible.
11/02/09
Top CriticEmmerich supposedly spent $260m to give you the biggest experience for your ticket dollar and in this regard, he has succeeded tremendously, while, intentionally or otherwise, also delivering one of 2009’s best comedies.
11/02/09
Top Critic2012 is so long, and its special effects are at once so outrageous and so thunderously predictable, that by the time I lurched from the theatre I felt that three years had actually passed and that the apocalypse was due any second.
11/16/09
Top Critic[Nothing] will give you more respect for how difficult it is to be an actor than watching top talent like John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet and Oliver Platt struggling to treat the film's ungodly language and situations with perfect seriousness.
11/13/09
Top CriticDespite the frenetic action scenes, the movie sags, done in by multiple story lines that undercut one another and by the heaviness of its conceit.
11/13/09
Top CriticFundamentally terrible, but almost irresistibly entertaining. Its horrors get a tad monotonous in the mid-section, but it’s still a value-for-money hoot.
11/13/09
Top Critic2012, a near three-hour movie built entirely out of special effects set pieces and join-the-dots characterisation.
11/13/09
Top CriticThe crowning achievement in Emmerich's long, profitable career as a destroyer of worlds.
11/13/09
Top CriticThis oafish epic about the End of Days -- as predicted by the Mayan calendar -- operates in a dead zone roughly equidistant between parody and idiocy.
11/13/09
Top CriticThe movie is an undeniable visual spectacle, but just as unequivocally a cheesy, ridiculous story.
11/13/09
Top Critic2012 is a sideshow ride, a rollickingly good thrill until it loses momentum in the last act, but even so, at 158 minutes, there's plenty of bang for your buck.
11/12/09
Top CriticThis is fun. 2012 delivers what it promises, and since no sentient being will buy a ticket expecting anything else, it will be, for its audiences, one of the most satisfactory films of the year.
11/12/09
Top CriticOn any level other than as sheer visual sensation, 2012 is a joke, for the simple reason that it has no point of view.
11/10/09
Top Critic1 - 19 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Latest News for 2012
December 08, 2009:
Roland Emmerich To Pocket $100 Million For 2012 
With 2012 looking to earn upwards of $700 million, it looks like its director Roland Emmerich's take of the cut will be roughly $100 million. Read the article for further details. More...
November 15, 2009:
Box Office Guru Wrapup: 2012 Destroys the Competition
This weekend Audiences were warned - by Mayans and film critics alike - but moviegoers around the world still flooded the multiplexes to see Roland Emmerich's latest disaster... More...
November 14, 2009:
Emmerich doesn't mess around when intent on messing up the world for good. But his pop apocalypse multiplying man's worst fears, always goes down easy with a side order of popcorn. Apocalypse Wow.
More...
November 13, 2009:
Friday Harvest: Clash of the Titans, Kick-Ass, and more!
Happy Friday Harvest, a weekly round-up of the best pictures, posters, and videos that have become available for viewing/download on Rotten Tomatoes. Each section features the... More...
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