2012 Spectacular but Stupid

Critics agree that world-destroying disaster epic 2012 boasts some stunning special effects, but they're split on whether that makes up for the cheesy script—and the run time of 2 hours, 38 minutes.

• Director Roland Emmerich's previous destruction-fests Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow "are nothing compared to the Vegas buffet of apocalyptic scenarios littering 2012," writes the Chicago Trib's Michael Phillips, who "quite enjoyed the experience, at least the first five or six hours of it."

• "2012 delivers what it promises, and since no sentient being will buy a ticket expecting anything else, it will be, for its audiences, one of the most satisfactory films of the year. It even has real actors in it," writes Roger Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times, and while the special effects aren't always believable, "how can the flooding of the Himalayas be made convincing?"
• As far as 2012 is concerned, writes Kenneth Turan at the LA Times, "the world will end with both a bang and a whimper, the bang of undeniably impressive special effects and the whimper of inept writing and characterization."

(More John Cusack stories.)