2012 Review

If director Roland Emmerich and the ancient Mayan calendar are to be believed, we'll all be dead in three years. In 2012, Emmerich's latest disaster epic, earth crust displacement and a unique solar alignment bring about the end of the world as we know it. (Mayans scholars, it should be noted, claim they've been misunderstood, and that their prophecies really refer to a rebirth for humanity in 2012 rather than our utter and complete annihilation. We'll see.)

The story centers on Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), a struggling author who moonlights as a limo driver for a shady Russian billionaire. Jackson's ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet) and their two kids live with her new boyfriend, plastic surgeon Gordon (director-actor Tom McCarthy). While watching his kids for the weekend, Jackson happens to learn the awful truth via the apocalyptic ravings of radio talk show host Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson), who relates the story of how the Mayan calendar prophesied the end of the world on December 21, 2012. With California falling apart around him, Jackson races against time to save his family. Meanwhile in Washington D.C., President Wilson (Danny Glover), his chief of staff Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt), and idealistic young science adviser Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) struggle with how to save as many people as they can -- and who these fortunate few will be. Such moral, political and philosophical questions are raised but never explored in enough depth to distract from the real reason why everyone is watching 2012: to see the world destroyed in the most visually amazing manner possible.

"The sky was all purple; there were people runnin' everywhere. Tryin' to run from the destruction; you know I didn't even care." Those lyrics from Prince's "1999" are applicable to 2012. Remember the scene from Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow where the characters outrun the breaking ice? Well, now imagine an entire movie made up of such sequences and you'll have 2012, an utterly preposterous disaster epic that cements Emmerich's status as our latter day Irwin Allen.

2012 is every bit as cheesy, melodramatic and full of jaw-dropping spectacle as the Allen-produced star-studded disaster epics that inspired it -- and, dare I say, almost as much dopey fun as them. As in those '70s classics, respectable actors are cast in essentially soap opera-level roles where they get a few perfunctory scenes to establish what's at stake for their characters beyond just mere survival. When that's out of the way, they can get down to their real duty which is to shout, run and look scared.