A few words about...™ 2012 -- in Blu-ray

Disaster films have been with us since the earliest days of motion pictures.

Fires, earthquakes, floods, rogue waves and capsized luxury liners... we've seen them all.

But to actually bring about the end of modern civilization as we now know it, we needed two elements.  Director Roland Emmerich and digital technology.  2012 goes a bit beyond the 1930s disaster epic, in which one can see the wires pulling on palm trees to make them appear to bend in the deluge.

Actually, I don't recall any film going quite the digital distance as 2012, a high powered, occasionally silly, but ultimately rewarding disaster epic (at 158 minutes) that makes the end of our world entertaining.

While the effects are beautifully rendered, the storyline bogged down for me on occasion, especially so near the denouement, when with the survival of mankind hanging in the balance, and only moments left to accomplish the deed that may save it, John Cusack is given a scene in which he has time to chat with his family.  If Blu-ray could enable an edit function...

All in all, 2012 is fun entertainment all packed into a beautifully crafted Blu-ray.  With an image captured via both Panavision Genesis as well as S35 film, and taken to a 2k digital intermediate, the final result on Blu looks as it should, a crisp, clean representation of down-rezzed data files.  With that final image along with uncompressed DTS HD Master Audio, Sony's Blu-ray is a treat for the home theater enthusiast.

Cranking up the audio, which is superb, allows the home viewer to break their least and watch the end of the world concurrently.

Recommended not as great cinema, but as a fun ride, herein presented on a beautifully rendered Blu-ray.

RAH

Are you folks trying to tell me that the world (as we know it) may possibly not end (entirely) in 2012?

The majority of modern films dependent upon effects laden storylines are generally precisely that.  A story with all of the normal attributes that is used to hold the fx sequences together.  2012 is no different.  No better, occasionally worse.  The point of interest here is how the filmmaker has used digital technology to up the fx ante.  The actual story is almost irrelevant.