Centuries ago, the Mayans left us their calendar, with a clear end date and all that it implies. Since then, astrologists have discovered it, numerologists have found patterns that predict it, geologists say the earth is overdue for it, and even government scientists cannot deny the cataclysm of epic proportions that awaits the earth in 2012. A prophecy that began with the Mayans has now been well-chronicled, discussed, taken apart and examined. By 2012, we'll know we were warned...

Terrible. That one word describes 2012 oh so very well. A few years ago whole writing a review I thought they should come up with a new category for films called the Murphy’s Law category. These are the kind of films where the actors and characters run from one disaster to the next and where anything that bad can happen does happen. Recently the media has started dubbing films like 2012 disaster porn and that is what the film does it mixes Murphy’s Law with Disaster Porn. Its not bad enough that the world is about to end but we got to make sure our characters go through everything imaginable going wrong to only be saved at the last moment after having to endure two and half hours of Murphy’s Law and every known disaster being thrown at them.

2012 is a bloated uninspired mess of a film. The movie clocks in at over two and half hours so it can make sure that it throws every conceivable disaster at its characters and about half way through you are bored with it all. Cities crumbling under them, volcano exploding behind them, avalanches, tidal waves, mankind and greed taking forefront and our heroes all in the center of it all so we have someone to root for as we watch millions upon millions die. This movie could have easily been boiled down to a crisp ninety minutes but the film makers wouldn’t be sated with that as then our characters wouldn’t have to escape fifty different disasters to make us want to root and cheer for them.

Director Roland Emmerich needs to find a new genre to beat to death. You would think after Independence Day and the Day After Tomorrow this glutton for disaster would be sated by now but now instead his movies only seem to get longer, more clichéd and far more terrible as he makes one after another. The entire film of 2012 is one big cliché and something you have already seen a thousand times before and it just never seems to end. It is an endless test of how well you can sit through disaster after disaster long after you have stopped caring and only wishing for the film to wrap it up to the very predictable ending it is heading for.

John Cusack was slumming in this film. He has so much more talent as an actor than to be making dreck like this. It’s hard to imagine any actor reading the script for this movie and thinking well that sounds great sign me up. Now they drop a pile of cash in front of you and say we got this big FX high spectacle film we want to make how do you feel about making a lot of money. One of the few saving graces for the movie is Woody Harrelson who puts in a great comedic performance as a doomsayer prophet and adds some levity to an overly serious movie. The movie is bad and you should avoid it, it’s not something even worth a rental.

Grade: D