The Day After The Day After The Day After The Year Or So After Tomorrow.

Mr. Roland Emmerich has had a rather interesting Hollywood career, Stargate, cack, Independance Day, awesome. Godzilla, cack, The Day After Tomorrow, awesome. 10,000 B.C., cack. So in essence 2012, seeing as his last film was more than the standard cack, should be a masterpiece right?

I mean, the basic set up, John Cusack as divorced dad rushes to save kids, Amanda Peet and her new boyfriend as the world collapses, with lots of CGI and loud noises, should be a focussed, simple exercise in unmittigated disaster movies, right?

Well, to be fair, the film opens with a 15 minute set up, including Chiwetel Ejiofer, in another masterful performance where only a standard one is ever needed, meets his pal Jimi Mistry, again great, in India and discovers things are starting to happen in the Earth's core along with solar flares taking physical damage on the planet. Then Oliver Platt, who has a real bad agent after Year One, understands the danger and helps him, but, shock horror, he has his own plans cos he's part of the government.
Add to that Thandie Newton, Danny Glover's daughter, he's the president, works for a company who replaces art in time for the worldwide crisis, finds out the details as her friend explodes in the same, shameless, tunnel as a certain 'peoples princess' like that matters.

Oh, yeah, and everytime Danny Glover says something he doesn't look outside as the disaster hits and say "I'm gettin' too old for this shit" so he fails.

But, yeah, the basic premise is shit is happening all around the World in increasingly ridiculous manners and some people gave a billion euros for a seat on an ark, so they head over there, Cusack and co. know where to find it cos crazy hillbilly Woody Harrelson presents a radio show about conspiracies like that...

Cue many moments of "We're gonna die" then they don't, miraculously, for 2 hours and change. It's ridiculously long and painfully contrived, and worst of all, unengaging. It's the end of the World and the characters are so bland we can't connect with any of them, and this is the film's problem. We can sit through a long film if the characters are right, Jesse James, Dark Knight, Watchmen, Lord Of The Rings, the characters are set up, reacting to the situations in a way only they could, and we follow them, here it's about as inventive as GI Joe.

The acting of the big names is mostly great, Harrelson, Ejiofer, Mistry, Platt, Glover, Cusack, Peet, Newton, all as expected, Cusack's kids aren't bad either, though a Russian billionaire's family are awful, twin russian kids who sound more American than anything else, and an annoying, boring trophy girlfriend help make the middle section painfully dull before the body count reaches new heights. The whole ark idea was better done in Sky Captain too, but I guess you can't expect miracles.

And to be honest the film doesn't try too hard, it just throws situations out on the screen to see what happens, be it the Sistine chapel's God and Adam image cracking in the middle, or Amanda Peet and her boyfriend in a supermarket, he says "I'll never leave you" or something then a crack separates them without making any of them fall down the gap, miraculously.

It's all stupid, and maybe in a more vocal, entertaining crowd it works, but in an English, soggy, mid-day crowd the film fails on a lot of levels, especially entertainment, some scenes are better on youtube.
5/10