2012 (2009)

Tiresome and trite and often just plain offensive, 2012 is the easily the most inept disaster film it’s ever been my misfortune to see. It makes THE SWARM look like an Ingmar Bergman film. I cringed every time some poor actor had to deliver the most vapid dialogue but it must be a relief for John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Oliver Platt and George Segal that having delivered the worst performances of their career, they have nowhere to go but up. The film, an uncredited adaptation of WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, focuses on the destruction of the planet and an attempt by a number of “chosen” people (and a handful of the unchosen) to survive. What I found extremely offensive was the cheap laughs amid what should be the most horrible fate of mankind and the treatment of it as one big amusement park ride straight out of Disneyland what with planes dodging collapsing skyscrapers as if it were a video game and everybody screaming as if they were on a rollercoaster ride. If this film is to be believed, it’s the dregs of humanity will survive. The only character I had an iota of sympathy for was Beatrice Rosen as the mistress of a rich Russian so, of course, she must die a lingering death while the ciphers live.