Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) ushers in another wave of pixel-powered doom, this time wiping out our collective brain cells with his latest movie of mass destruction.

2012 is one of those happy movies; on one hand, serving up a doom-laden prophecy of global annihilation and, on the other, making you utterly resent the characters who survived to rebuild mankind.

The plot can be summed up by an apt analogy; akin to spreading a tiny knife-edge’s worth of butter over a mile of (computer-generated) toast. When the onslaught of global obliteration begins, the plot really is a series of people avoiding cars/buildings/comets/water/dialogue to survive until the next scene.

You could argue that the whole purpose of such an entry in a genre that lacks any type of versatility is not to offer a timeless allegory, but to maximise bang for your buck. You could argue that. But after two and a half hours of this plump running time, though, the end of the world can’t come soon enough.

John Cusack makes for an amicable lead, offering the same type of quirky, off-beat casting that Goldblum, Broderick and Gyllenhaal did in the director’s previous world-ending efforts. Unfortunately, the tired old routine of the torn family and Cusack’s near robotic performance make the central ethos one-note.

It is a decent cast of supporting players, filled with character-actors who deliver the lines with gusto, but the script itself is filled with nothing more than leaden dramatics. In fact, it is a waste of such a talented cast, all having to play second-fiddle to a barrage of special effects that are neither particularly special nor effective. It is all stuff we have seen before, mainly in the director’s previous movies.

Now, this is an odd admission we must make, but this become such a plundering bore that before the halfway point, we fell asleep. What we missed is summed up in roughly seven words on Wikipedia. Seven words to describe half an hour of missing movie.

It’s hard to describe what a mess this film is. It’s bloated, absurd and devoid of any emotional connection. We actually felt sorry for one character, whose spouse found that roughly ten minutes was enough time to move onto another man after his demise. It’s one of those frustrating moments in film, that leave you bewildered at the sheer stupidity of the situation.

You may buy into this as a brainless action movie, the type film that’ll prove perfect Saturday night fodder, but it fails to engage on even the most primordial level. It has bangs for your bucks, but somehow, the enjoyment got buried beneath the rubble. This is the definition of a disaster movie.

‘Spray Rating: 1/5

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Shuffling mindless droves, drooling, stumbling towards you with their vacuous black eyes – it’s not easy going out to the cinema these days. Luckily, Zombieland is one of those films that’ll pick-up a cult following on DVD (and Blu-ray), much like its main inspiration Shaun of the Dead.

Shaun’s influence is as much admitted by the film’s creators, but this doesn’t make the mistake of being a carbon copy. Firstly, it clearly has a budget that stretches past the few teabags that their UK friends had. And it also manages to supply a decent amount of zombie bludgeoning to go along with the ample helping of comedy.

Jesse Eisenberg is playing Michael Cera Columbus, whose MMORPG/wankathon lifestyle has left him with the neuroses akin to one of Woody Allen’s balls; leaving him surprisingly well-prepared for the zombie-apocalypse. It’s not until he matches this intellect with the gun-toting Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), that the film finds its stride.

It soon turns into a road movie; the two go cross-country, making the odd pitstop to decapitate a brain-feeder or two, followed by the obligatory one-liner and then setting off to the next location. It’s not the most complicated formula, but one that opens up the movie to avenues previously unexplored by the genre – not that you believed such a thing was possible.

We may feel as if we’ve been hit around the head with the sub-genre more than the zombies featured in the films over the years, but Zombieland is shockingly refreshing. It’s as if the writers and director took bites out of the horror, indie, comedy and splatter movies, chewed them all up, regurgitated, then formed something from the mush that doesn’t spit in the face of any of the above. In fact, it’s pure fun.

Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin round off the family here, bringing different comedy elements and forging memorable relationships that genuinely spark. Come closing credits, this is a group that you can’t wait to jump into another adventure with, actually warranting a sequel of even more epic proportions.

This is a theme-park of fun, blood and decapitation. It’s no secret that it features one of the best cameos of recent years and the cast are clearly having a ball. Nothing here is particularly original or outstanding, but its energy is infectious.

In the closing statement, you’d probably expect some sort of witty play on words about strapping yourself in for a rollercoaster ride of excitement. But we simply won’t do it. It’s a cliché and, more importantly, Come Dine With Me is on. So; it’s great, it has a theme park in it, and zombies turn up and get their faces hit with amusing items. There – I bet you weren’t expecting that.

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Well thanks a lot Woody Harrelson – Wesley Snipes asks you to do one bloody thing to keep him out of jail and you balls it all up.

No really, thanks. All Wesley Snipes wanted to you to do was write a heartfelt character reference to stop a judge from sending him to jail for three years on a tax evasion charge, and you ended up jabbering on about how close together your birthdays are. You really are a great big dipshit.

In fact, it’s probably all your fault that Wesley Snipes was sentenced to three years in jail yesterday. But you’ve only hurt yourself, you know – now that Wesley Snipes is in jail, you can kiss goodbye to any notion you had about making Money Train 2: Money Train In Space before 2011.

Let this be a lesson to all potential tax-dodgers – not filing your taxes is officially 192,292 times more serious than driving into oncoming traffic blasted off your mind on drugs. Because when Nicole Richie did the latter she spent 82 minutes in jail, but now that Wesley Snipes has been convicted of the former he’s been sentenced to three years in jail.

That’s not a total surprise – we learnt that Wesley Snipes could face a three-year jail sentence earlier this month – but in a justice system that usually goes light on celebrities whether they’ve illegally bought some guns or allegedly shot a woman in the face, it’s quite rare for a star to get lumbered with a maximum sentence for anything.

But that’s what happened yesterday – after being found guilty of not filing tax returns for three consecutive years, Wesley Snipes was handed the greatest punishment available to the judge. Nothing – not claiming that the IRS doesn’t properly exist, not begging that his children will go to sleep crying if he went to jail – could stop it. And, as the New York Daily News reports, Wesley Snipes knows exactly why he’s going to jail:

The actor read a statement, apologizing for his “costly mistakes,” but never mentioned taxes. “I am an idealistic, naive, passionate, truth-seeking, spiritually motivated artist, unschooled in the science of law and finance,” Snipes said.

Hard to disagree with that – statistically, the 1994 Wesley Snipes skydiving crime caper Drop Zone is the most spiritually-motivated movie in the history of cinema.

But, really, if anyone is to blame for Wesley Snipes’ incarceration then it’s Woody bloody Harrelson. Just the other day Wesley Snipes asked Woody to write a character reference to convince the judge to keep him out of jail, and Woody Harrelson ended up scribbling down some half-baked anecdote about how his birthday is quite close to Wesley Snipes’ birthday and the time they both met Goldie Hawn once.

It didn’t work – of course it didn’t work. It was just about the most boneheaded thing that he could have possibly written. But, although he’s a hopeless stoner idiot, Woody Harrelson is a good-natured hopeless stoner idiot and we’re sure he’ll try and make it up to Wesley Snipes somehow. Maybe he’ll just maintain a comforting correspondence throughout Wesley’s sentence – after all, trying to decipher a regular series of formless rambles about absolutely nothing at all will be just the thing to stop Wesley Snipes from losing his mind in jail. Right?

Read more:

Wesley Snipes gets 3 years for tax convictions – New York Daily News

There’s a good chance that Wesley Snipes will be sent to jail for three years today – but not if the bald bloke from Cheers has any say-so.

In a final desperate bid to wriggle out of a jail sentence after being found guilty of tax fraud, Wesley Snipes has enlisted the help of two of his most famous friends – Denzel Washington and Woody Harrleson – to write character witness statements pleading with the judge to let Snipes keep his freedom.

It might just work – the naturally-authoritative Washington appeals to the judge’s sense of leniency by referring to Snipes in his letter as ‘a mighty oak’. Harrelson, meanwhile, has just drawn a big picture of a happy cat in wax crayon on his, and then written ‘I like kitons’ underneath it. Might help.

There’s a chance that the next time you see Wesley Snipes he’ll have a brand-new Islamic name, a messy tattoo on the side of his arm and the sorrowful expression of a man who’s seen another man crap in his pants for sport. That’s because Wesley Snipes could be going to jail later today.

As you may know, Wesley Snipes is going through some tax troubles at the moment. The disagreement is actually quite simple – Wesley Snipes says it’s OK that he didn’t pay tax for a bunch of years because he doesn’t recognise the IRS as a proper government agency, and the government says that Wesley Snipes is a massive dick and should go to jail. Oddly enough, the government won the disagreement.

After being found guilty of not filing tax returns for three years, Wesley Snipes now faces a three-year jail sentence. That’s bad enough for us – we want to see Passenger 58 get made so badly it makes us cry – but it’s even worse for Wesley Snipes, who’ll miss everything from the South African World Cup to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Singapore while he’s behind bars.

And it looks like there’s no avoiding it, either. There’s literally nothing that any normal person can do to stop Wesley Snipes from going to jail. But Wesley Snipes has some friends who aren’t normal. Wesley Snipes has some friends who are better than normal. Wesley Snipes have some friends who are… famous.

And between them, Wesley Snipes is hoping that Denzel Washington and Woody Harrelson will be able to sway the judge. According to documents published by TMZ, Denzel Washington says that Wesley Snipes is:

Like a tree – a mighty oak. He stands for so many, “like a tree, planted by streams of water with leaves that do not wither.” Many who know him have witnessed the fruits of his labours, have sat in his shade and even been protected by his presence. I am proud of him, proud to call him a fellow thespian and most importantly, proud to call him my friend.

Stirring, poetic stuff there, even if the whole tree analogy started wearing thin by the time Denzel started banging on about eating Wesley Snipes’ fruit. But full marks for effort. And what about Woody Harrelson? How has he chosen to try and stage a last-minute big for his friend’s freedom?

My first movie was also his first movie, Wildcats with Goldie Hawn. Both of us were 23 and our birthdays are only one week apart.

Christ. See you in 2011, Wesley.

Read more:

Celebs Sign Up as Snipers – TMZ