$12.50 is an awful lot to pay for a movie ticket, especially when I’m an honest patron and buy my ridiculously priced soda at the concessions stand and not at the Duane Reade across the street. That’s part of the reason that Conall and I decided to make it a double feature last night with 2012 and Ninja Assassin.

I’m sorry, but if I had known what I know now, you couldn’t pay me $12.50 to see 2012. I don’t mean to sound like some pretentious film buff by hating on mainstream Hollywood enterprises like this and New Moon (I hate a lot of artsy stuff too- and just let it be known that Up was probably my favorite movie of the year, along with Valentino: The Last Emperor), but this movie just plain sucked. I didn’t have any high aspirations to begin with, but somehow I found myself being continuously let down. The film even started on a relatively high note for me because it had that adorable Indian guy from The Love Guru, but here are some things that bothered me:

• The subtle eyeliner on John Cusack’s lower eyelids
• The twin “Russian” boys: what was up with their terrible, shape-shifting accents? Either hire some real Russians or some better actors.
• The disheveled divorced dad thing is over done. I hate to say it, but even Tom Cruise played it better in War of the Worlds
• The attempt to make all rich people look like unattractive, undeserving assholes
• The arcs- who is Emmerich’s target audience? The Bible belt?
• Why did the screenwriter insist on hitting us over the head with everything? What ever happened to subtlety? “I read a quote by an author- he’s probably dead by now-” Of course he’s not. It’s fucking John Cusack and just by you saying he’s probably dead we all know that he’s not. “Leave it to the Chinese”- We get it, things are made in China! We actually see that on the screen in front of us
• The whole stupid family thing. Wouldn’t the boy who’s spent the last two hours praising his mom’s boyfriend and hating on his dad be a little more upset when the boyfriend crushed to death? And wouldn’t the mom wait at least 24 hours before sucking face with her loser ex-husband?
• Were some death scenes supposed to be funny? Like when the Russian pilot who’s just sacrificed himself for everyone thinks for a moment he’s survived the plane crash, and then plunges to his death? Uncool.
• Of course nothing has happened to Africa. This movie should really teach us to be good global citizens.
• All my favorites died: The comic-relief (Yuri the Russian), Gordon the good-guy boyfriend, the old men on the ship, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson and the Love Guru. The new world is going to be full of stiffs.
• The last line of movie- “No more pull-ups.” Seriously?

And for all the praise Emmerich could get for his nifty special effects- the one’s in Ninja Assassin were much cooler- a guy’s head got chopped in half!! I don’t care if Rain’s english and acting was so bad to the point where I wondered if he actually had any clue what he was saying; it wasn’t any worse that Cusack’s permanent eyeliner. Ninja’s are the winners by far and it’s too bad the box office numbers don’t reflect that.