Critic's Choice: 2012
Kyle DeGoey
Issue date: 11/18/09 Section: Variety
Dear Mr. Emmerich,
(Writer/Director of "2012")
You've wasted three hours of my life that I cannot get back.
Movie plot: Stop me if you've heard this one before. A kind-hearted yet unsuccessful divorcee' who can't connect with his children is forced into an extraordinary situation in which he is asked to save civilization from a world that is exploding, flooding, shifting and shaking all around him. Not only will he be asked to save the day, he will some how out-run earthquakes, dodge falling meteor-like volcanic rocks, drive a car like Jeff Gordon and hold his breath longer than David Blaine. Earth is doomed, yet no one finds out about it because of a government cover up trying to keep the peace until dooms day. If the public knew there would be anarchy. Sound familiar? Oh, and I hope you enjoy airplanes barely escaping a crumbling runway, because that scene will be in the movie almost identically three different times.
I feel like I've seen this movie before. Let me think, oh yeah: "The Day After Tomorrow," "Deep Impact," "Armageddon," "The Core," and "Knowing." There is a small difference between these movies past and "2012." These movies have an average running time at just about two hours. "2012" is two hours and forty minutes long. You could have cut entire characters out of this film without the slightest change in the plot or emotion. Characters we have met on screen for two minutes do not deserve an eight-minute tearful goodbye. We don't need to see three different airplanes avoiding certain death by inches three different times. It's a boring, overplayed scene that squanders my time that could have been better spent doing something else, like not seeing your dreadful movie.
If you do intend to make another movie, please reconsider the importance of unnecessary, gratuitous explosions, and perhaps add a little substance to your films. Explosions might hold my attention for a scene or two, but it won't camouflage the loose storylines, cheesy one-liners and hippy Woody Harrelsons. Please, Mr. Emmerich, you're better than this.
Yours,
Kyle DeGoey
Overall Grade: F
(Writer/Director of "2012")
You've wasted three hours of my life that I cannot get back.
Movie plot: Stop me if you've heard this one before. A kind-hearted yet unsuccessful divorcee' who can't connect with his children is forced into an extraordinary situation in which he is asked to save civilization from a world that is exploding, flooding, shifting and shaking all around him. Not only will he be asked to save the day, he will some how out-run earthquakes, dodge falling meteor-like volcanic rocks, drive a car like Jeff Gordon and hold his breath longer than David Blaine. Earth is doomed, yet no one finds out about it because of a government cover up trying to keep the peace until dooms day. If the public knew there would be anarchy. Sound familiar? Oh, and I hope you enjoy airplanes barely escaping a crumbling runway, because that scene will be in the movie almost identically three different times.
I feel like I've seen this movie before. Let me think, oh yeah: "The Day After Tomorrow," "Deep Impact," "Armageddon," "The Core," and "Knowing." There is a small difference between these movies past and "2012." These movies have an average running time at just about two hours. "2012" is two hours and forty minutes long. You could have cut entire characters out of this film without the slightest change in the plot or emotion. Characters we have met on screen for two minutes do not deserve an eight-minute tearful goodbye. We don't need to see three different airplanes avoiding certain death by inches three different times. It's a boring, overplayed scene that squanders my time that could have been better spent doing something else, like not seeing your dreadful movie.
If you do intend to make another movie, please reconsider the importance of unnecessary, gratuitous explosions, and perhaps add a little substance to your films. Explosions might hold my attention for a scene or two, but it won't camouflage the loose storylines, cheesy one-liners and hippy Woody Harrelsons. Please, Mr. Emmerich, you're better than this.
Yours,
Kyle DeGoey
Overall Grade: F
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