by Samantha Brennan / Milton High School
We talk about the world ending as being an over-exaggerated lie, but not in the case of this film. In 2012, the Earth has planned our destiny, and it’s up to the humans to strategize a way out. This earthquake-fancying film stars John Cusack as Jackson, a divorced failed author whose present dwindling world is in for a major disaster. His wife, Amanda Peet, and two kids could care less about their absent father.
After hearing advice from his buddy/talk show radio host Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson), Jackson evolves into the man in the director’s chair, the new leader of the squad. Though he saves his family continuously throughout the movie, it could help if the movie subtracted the frequent heart attacks he gives them.
So what’s the government doing about this? Apparently they are convinced of what a nasty internal government organizer (Oliver Platt) persuaded them, that telling the world about a life-obliterating epidemic is on the bottom of the to-do list.
What’s truly fascinating about this movie is the extension of the plot; you can imagine that the world and all of its inhabitants being destroyed in an instant could be hard to lengthen into a 158 minute film, but they manage. One of their methods is slowly playing the scene so you can watch the exact expressions on every one’s face when they see a 60 foot tsunami suddenly hitting them.
The musical score was definitely a plus with its extreme, but needed, jolt of music when an apartment has just rapidly crashed to the ground. Its maximum-level volume gives you a hint that this movie is not one of the less amusing, boring types. Before you walk into the theatre, remember to check three things off your list: a large popcorn, a drink which you can obnoxiously spill onto your partner with every crash, and if you can squeeze it in, a little camcorder for those scenes that desperately need to be watched again.