There are several things that director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) doesn’t seem too concerned about in the bloated, CGI-laden disaster movie 2012. These include, but are not limited to:  plot, character development, plausibility, restraint, and subtlety. I kind of understand why he chooses to ignore these elements. If you get bogged down with all these pesky details, how are you supposed to focus on THE SPECTACLE?

THE SPECTACLE is the star of this film, and clearly every resource available was used to ensure that this movie looks good, everything else be damned. 2012 is a full 2 1/2 hour visual assault of CGI, destruction, chase scenes, and every natural disaster a geophysicist could possibly imagine. It’s chalk full of action movie clichés, right down to the brooding and estranged ex-husband who happens to be near his old family when disaster strikes, and must lead them to safety. Not only is the movie wholly unoriginal, but it actually feels like Emmerich just cherry-picked his favorite scenes from action movies he likes, and found a way to throw them all into a threadbare story.

This is director indulgence gone too far. The movie is an hour too long, and a few key scenes would have had far more impact if there were not an action scene thrown in every 3-4 minutes. It’s as though Emmerich is saying to the audience: “You are going to sit there in your seat, and you are going to watch the crap out of this movie.”

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We have been a bit hard around here on 2012, the new Roland Emmerich film about the end of the world, but given the director’s track record and the fact that the trailer doesn’t look like anything we haven’t seen dozens of times before on the big screen, we think we probably have just cause.

It looks like we aren’t the only people making fun of it, as a new fan film has popped up online using the first five minutes of the film. The edit proves that this film can become two things without it’s overblown special effects: quite pointless and outrageously funny.

For those interested in the film itself, it stars a cornucopia of celebrities from John Cusack to Woody Harrelson and Amanda Peet and is about a prophecy where the world comes to an end in December of 2012. Roland Emmerich is also the director that brought us gems like 10,000 BC and The Day After Tomorrow.

Check out the fan film after the jump. Catch 2012 in theaters everywhere this November.

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While most disaster movies of late have gone the way of the Poseidon Adventure remake, there has been some positive buzz about the newest “the world is ending” film, 2012. Though the film is getting a November release (most disaster movies are known to do better during the summer) and has 10,000 BC’s Roland Emmerich at the helm, we do have some hope.

From what we know, the film focuses on the main character and his family on a microcosmic level as ancient prophecies come true. The world begins to literally fall apart around us, as the Earth has an expiration date of 2012. The tagline of the film is simply “We Were Warned,” which hopefully has nothing to do with the actual production of the movie and its resultant quality.

Writer Herald Kloser helped with the epic script and the film stars, in no particular order, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Oliver Platt, and Amanda Peet. Check out brand new footage and dialogue in the Japanese trailer after the jump.

Expect the world to end as we know it, at least according to 2012, on November 13.

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We haven’t posted all that much about Roland Emmerich’s epic disaster movie 2012 here at the site because it doesn’t really look all that good. There was a punchy little trailer about a month back, which we posted for your viewing pleasure, but that didn’t really raise our expectations. Thankfully, the friendly folks at i09 put together this lovely remix of the trailer, to show off it’s true nature, and help us all comprehend how ridiculous the movie really looks.

For those still thinking optimistically, the film is written and directed by Roland Emmerich, who brought us such films as 10,000 BC and The Day After Tomorrow. According to IMDB, the movie is “an epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors.”

Those survivors include such names as John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, Oliver Platt, and Danny Glover. 2012 hits screens November 13 of this year.

Check out the new trailer “remix” after the jump.

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