Wednesday, January 4, 2017

2012 Review












2012


Release Date: 12th November 2009 - Australia


Production Companies
Columbia Pictures (presents)
Centropolis Entertainment
The Mark Gordon Company (Uncredited)

Distribution
Sony Pictures Australia


Genre: Action

Rating: M

Runtime: 158 minutes


Budget: $200,000,000

Box Office Gross: $791,217,826 (Worldwide)


Plot Summary
The world is ending
because the Earth's core is
heating up, which causes
the crust to become
unstable, as discovered
by Dr. Adrian Helmsley,
who is part of a worldwide
geophysical team. Warning
U.S. President Thomas
Wilson that the Earth's
crustal structure was
destabilising and that
failure to prepare to save
a fraction of the world's
population would lead to
the destruction of the whole
species. Meanwhile, the
same information has been
stumbled upon by writer
Jackson Curtis. As the
world's leaders rush to
build "arks" to escape the
oncoming disaster, Curtis
struggles to find a way
to save his family. In
the meantime, volcanic
eruptions and earthquakes
of unprecedented strength
are wreaking havoc worldwide.


Cast
John Cusack - Jackson Curtis
Chiwetel Ejiofor - Adrian Helmsley
Amanda Peet - Kate Curtis
Thandie Newton - Laura Wilson
Oliver Platt - Carl Anheuser
Tom McCarthy - Gordon
Silberman
Danny Glover - President
Thomas Wilson
Woody Harrelson - Charlie Frost
Liam James - Noah Curtis
Ziatko Buric - Yuri Karpov
Alexandre Haussmann - Alec
Philippe Haussmann - Oleg
Johann Urb - Sasha
John Billingsley - Professor West
Chin Han - Tenzin
Osric Chau - Nima
Tseng Chang - Grandfather Sonam
Lisa Lu - Grandmother Sonam 
Blu Mankuma - Harry Helmsley
George Segal - Tony Delgatto 
Stephen McHattie - Captain Michaels
Patrick Bauchau - Roland Picard
Jimi Mistry - Dr. Satnam Tsurutani
Ryan McDonald - Scotty
Merrilyn Gann - German Chancellor
Henry O - Lama Rinpoche
Zinaid Memisevic - President 
Sergey Makarenko
Paul Tryl - Zultan

Crew
Writer/Executive Producer/
Director - Roland Emmerich
Writer/Producer/Music - Harald Kloser
Associate Producer - Kristin Winkler
Executive Producers - Ute Emmerich and Michael Wimer 
Producers - Mark Gordon and Larry Franco
Co-Producers/Visual Effects Supervisors -
Volker Engel and Marc Weigert
Co-Producer/Second Unit Director - Aaron Boyd
Casting Director - April Webster
Military Advisor - Ron Blecker
Production Designer - Barry Chusid
Concept Artists - Tex Kadonaga and
James Clyne
Supervising Art Director - Don MacAulay
Set Decorator - Elizabeth Wilcox
Costume Designer - Shay Cunliffe
Director of Photography - Dean Semler
Aerial Directors of Photography: Second Unit -
Anne Foerster and Hans Bjerno
Underwater Director of Photography - Pete Romano
Unit Production Manager - Michael J. Malone
Location Managers - Hans Dayal, Ann Goobie
and Frederick G. Schroeder (Uncredited)
First Assistant Director - Tommy Gormley
First Assistant Directors: Second Unit -
James Bitonti and Andrew M. Robinson
Second Assistant Director: Second Unit -
Misha Bukowski
Second Second Assistant Director - Gary Hawes
Stunt Coordinator - John Stoneham Jr.
Aerial Coordinator - Frédéric North
Special Effects Supervisor - Mike Vézina
Special Effects Coordinator - Cameron Waldbauer
Animatronic Effects: Legacy Effects - J. Alan Scott,
Rob Ramsdell and Brian Namanny
Visual Effects Supervisor: SPI - Peter Nofz
Senior Visual Effects Supervisor: Scanline VFX -
Stephan Trojansky
Visual Effects Supervisor: Scanline VFX - John H. Han
Visual Effects Supervisor: Double Negative - Alex Wuttke
Visual Effects Supervisor: Digital Domain - Mohen Leo
Additional Visual Effects Supervisor:
Scanline VFX -  Bryan Grill
Visual Effects Designers: Hydraulx - Colin & Greg Strause
Visual Effects Producer - Josh R. Jaggars
Digital Effects Supervisors: Digital Domain -
David Hodgins and Darren Poe
Animation Supervisor: Hydraulx - Joshua Cordes
CG Supervisor: Uncharted Territory - Michael Grobe
Computer Graphics Supervisors: Digital Domain -
Haarm-Pieter Duiker and David J. Stephens 
Computer Graphics Supervisors: SPI - Daniel Eaton
and John Haley
Compositing Supervisor: Double Negative -
Matthew Twyford
Editors - David Brenner and 
Peter S. Elliott
Supervising Sound Editor/Sound Designer -
Paul N.J. Ottosson
Supervising Sound Mixers - Jeffrey J. Haboush,
Michael Keller and Rick Kline
Production Sound Mixer - Michael McGee
Foley Artists - Gary A. Hecker and
Michael Broomberg
Music - Thomas Wander
Score Mixer - Shawn Murphy


Review
In a lead-up to the New Year's Eve celebrations, I revisited the apocalyptic disaster flick 2012. The film premiered in 2009, and the prediction of the supposed doomsday outcome for 2012, which is integral to the storyline, fortunately, didn't happen in real life because it is false. Since then, all the fears and scepticism from everyone and myself about the movie have faded. Because there was no such apocalypse in this timeline, it's come to my attention that 2012 was a big-budget, flawed disaster movie on a large scale and featured a long-running time that minimises the impact of the destruction scenes. Director Roland Emmerich seems more interested in the dark tone and visual effects than using his efforts to try and fix the incoherent storyline.

John Cusack, Amanda Peet and Danny Glover's characterisation of their roles seemed too thin for an ambitious movie with such a mediocre script. While Danny is a suitable actor to portray a Barack Obama-like authority figure, his role wasn't the biggest in his career. The best actor that can pull through this picture is Woody Harrelson. He overacts as an ill-fated conspiracy theorist who informs Cusack that the world is ending.

However, this isn't exactly a deep, profound and emotional feature from the director. This movie is not worth a second viewing and is very likely an insult to the intelligence of moviegoers. It's likely better than Revenge of the Fallen from Michael Bay, which came out in the same year.

Star rating: (5/10) Average

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