After a week of viewing haughty foreign festival films, I decided to take a break by settling with a big budget disaster picture, no matter how mind numbingly awful it may be. And mind numbingly awful it is, made like every movie of its kind made recently with the special effects which are no longer impressive and the stupid cutesy jokes. This one is directed by Roland Emmerich, the prince of big dumb action flicks (Michael Bay is the king). It starts off with a White House official discovering in 2010 that the world will end two years later. He begins to inform high-ranking members of the country. The credits roll and we jump to 2012 when the rapture begins to take place. We follow a failed author (the eminently terrible John Cusack) and his two kids as they meet a hippie kook (a surprisingly irritating Woody Harrelson) who informs them of what looms ahead. The author meets up with his ex-wife and her boyfriend and all attempt to evade the imploding world. I take back what I said before. The effects are semi-impressive and this kind of film is fun up to a point, but the film is still loud and dumb and goes on way, way, way too long.
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