2012 Truly a Disaster

Roland Emmerich's 2012 features John Cusack racing to survive apocalyptic floods, earthquakes, and fire from the sky, but according to reviews you'd have a better time in the movie than watching it. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers writes that the film "works the dubious miracle of almost matching Transformers 2 for sheer, cynical, mind-numbing, time-wasting, money-draining, soul-sucking stupidity." The film cost a reported $260 million, but according to the New York Daily News' Elizabeth Weitzman they forgot to budget for a story that goes beyond "the highest-paid members of an indifferent cast [who] survive the massive floods and giant fireballs that cause our planet's destruction." Still, the special effects garnered praise from some critics, with Detroit News' Tom Long conceding it had an "awful efficiency" despite being "the largest-scale snuff film ever made."