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‘2012’: film review.

If you rolled every disaster movie into one spectacular package, you would wind up with something close to "2012," Roland Emmerich's latest apocalyptic fantasy.

By Stephen Farber

Stephen Farber

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If you rolled every disaster movie into one spectacular package, you would wind up with something close to “ 2012 ,” Roland Emmerich’s latest apocalyptic fantasy.

This time Emmerich and co-writer Harald Kloser use the Mayan calendar and other end-of-days prophecies for their doomsday scenario, which imagines the world coming to an end in 2012. Eye-popping special effects ensure that this movie will be a smash hit, and while it’s entertaining for most of its excessive running time, the cheesy script fails to live up to the grandeur of the physical production.

Stitching together highlights from “Earthquake,” “The Poseidon Adventure,” “Volcano,” and even “Titanic,” the movie follows the fate of a dozen characters as they fall victim to a series of calamities brought on by some kind of solar meltdown. The issue is not so much what caused the cataclysm but how humanity will respond to the crisis. A venal presidential adviser (Oliver Platt) has the task of handpicking the people who will be allowed to board the atomic-age equivalent of Noah’s ark. So the film aims to ask profound questions about how we choose the people worth saving. But profundity is not the director’s strong suit.

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Luckily, Emmerich’s movies — which include the disaster flicks “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow” — never take themselves too seriously, so it’s easy to enjoy the often laughable dialogue without balking. Credibility takes a flyer near the start, when an amateur pilot (Tom McCarthy) is able to steer a small plane through all kinds of fireballs and find his way to a tiny landing strip in Yellowstone National Park. You know the major characters aboard the airplane (John Cusack and Amanda Peet) aren’t going to meet a fiery death this early in the movie, so you tolerate the ludicrous plot device.

Every disaster movie derives its suspense from trying to guess which of the characters will survive and which will expire. One of the disappointments of “2012” is how predictable the crash-and-burn list turns out to be. As in many of these epics, the characters who have committed some kind of extramarital transgression are the ones marked for death. Cecil B. DeMille would have been pleased.

Technically, Emmerich and his crew bring off a series of wonders. The movie hits its peak early on, when Cusack drives a limo through the streets of Los Angeles as freeways and skyscrapers crumble all around him from the shock of a 10.5 earthquake. The preposterous flying sequence is equally thrilling. The climax occurs aboard the giant ark, when an equipment malfunction almost threatens the entire mission. Unfortunately, this crucial sequence is not filmed or edited with the requisite clarity. Say what you will about “Titanic,” but James Cameron did a brilliant job of photographing the spectacular shipwreck so that the logistics were always crystal clear. In “2012,” by contrast, Emmerich leaves us befuddled as to exactly what is happening to whom.

On the other hand, Emmerich deserves credit for offbeat casting. Cusack supplies his trademark hangdog charm, and McCarthy (recently better known as the director of “The Station Agent” and “The Visitor”) has perhaps his best role ever as Peet’s cocky but likable boyfriend. Danny Glover lends dignity to the role of the tormented president. (The role originally was written for a woman, until Hillary Clinton’s star began to fade during the 2008 primaries.) Chiwetel Ejiofor, as the chief scientist advising the world leaders, brings a moving sense of anguish to a stock role. Platt has fun playing the villain of the piece, and Woody Harrelson also chews the scenery as a bug-eyed radio prophet trying to warn his listeners about Armageddon. Peet’s role as Cusack’s ex-wife is drab, and Thandie Newton as the president’s daughter has to struggle with some ponderous dialogue. But then disaster movies never have been kind to their female characters.

Cinematography, production design and visual effects are awards-worthy. Music also propels the movie, with “American Idol” runner-up Adam Lambert providing a rousing anthem over the end credits.

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D isaster-blaster Roland Emmerich serves us up another of the globally apocalyptic extravaganzas he has made his own, applying his trademark CGI wrecking ball to various iconic buildings. The statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio takes a tumble and an awful crack appears in the Sistine Chapel ceiling, running directly between the fingers of God and Man. Oh lordy. As ever in Hollywood pictures with urgent "international" settings, the opening scene is set somewhere in Notamericaistan, where the first signs of trouble are detected.

Then we whisk to the real action: the West Wing. A copper mine is overheating somewhere in a far-off country. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays an earnest government scientist who realises that the earth's core temperature is overheating, as apparently smugly predicted by the ancient Mayans. It has incidentally zilch-all to do with global warming. Anyway, the world is going to end – in 2012! Thus substantially buggering up the London Olympics and all our medal-table hopes! This grave implication is sadly given scant mention here, but law and order breaks down all over the world as the earth's crust starts to bulge and crack, and for the anarchy in London, Emmerich appears to reuse old footage of the 1990 poll tax riots.

The star is John Cusack, playing a divorced novelist and author of some whinging yet inspiringly influential work about humanity and peace. Downbeat performers like him are important to counterweight the grandiloquent action with sympathetic quirkiness and ordinariness. For Cusack, the catastrophe is a valuable way of reuniting his family and moreover effecting a guilt-free removal of his ex-wife's new husband. Danny Glover is the US president who elects to stay with his doomed people on earth, rather than get on board the exit "ark" – like a captain going down with the ship. The only other world leader who takes this noble course is, I am sorry to say, the Italian prime minister. Somehow I can't imagine Silvio Berlusconi being quite so noble. The British prime minister has no qualms about scrambling aboard the rescue ship and the same goes for our queen. Her mother's famous Blitz spirit of not leaving London in a crisis seems not to have been inherited.

Yet when the catastrophe hits, when the buildings crash, and the seas engulf high mountains, one aspect of normal life still continues. Characters are still making contact via their mobile phones! Now, whatever network these people are with – I want to join. Are they on a contract or pay-as-you-go? How marvellous that with the earth literally falling apart, this mobile phone company is still providing a service.

This is a wildly over the top anthology of disaster pictures old and new, and Emmerich isn't above recycling other people's ideas. But it's enjoyable and the opening CGI thrill-ride through the collapsing streets of Los Angeles is undeniably good.

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2012 Reviews

Everything you’re expecting from 2012 is exactly what you’re going to get…Utterly impossible by any stretch of the imagination, the movie is a cheesy, one-dimensional, epic-sized spectacle that does exactly what it promises to—destroy the Earth.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 5, 2023

If you put your brain in neutral, you can enjoy an unprecedented scale of beautifully rendered destruction and learn that science isn't an exact science.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 24, 2023

A good disaster thriller must contain both thrills and massive destruction--2012 has both in great quantity.

Full Review | Jan 26, 2022

Harrelson has one of the better characters in the film and Peet does a good job.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 16, 2021

Roland Emmerich has pretty much cornered the market on big budget disaster films.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Nov 28, 2020

Volcanoes spew lava bombs, earthquakes tear up city blocks, skyscrapers topple, California sinks beneath the waves, and it's an amazing thrill ride .

Full Review | Nov 25, 2020

Escapist fun capitalizing on new millennium technology.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4.0 | Sep 24, 2020

"2012" crammed all of the awesome bits from every disaster movie into a single, incredible cinematic achievement. Do yourself a favor, watch "2012" and feel the circuitry of your brain melt into a steaming ball of flaming wreckage.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jul 14, 2020

Wears out its welcome at a ridiculous two hours and 40 minutes, throwing out every cliché in the disaster movie handbook.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Jun 6, 2019

An overlong, overindulgent action film that wants to be fun and exciting, but is really rather dull and exhausting.

Full Review | Original Score: C | May 11, 2019

2012 is all about this irrational determination to live and perpetuate our crappy civilization. The film concentrates fiercely on who's going to get a spot on the ark in the end.

Full Review | Oct 30, 2018

...seriously, how often do we want to escape into worlds that are hell-bent on ravaging our sense of security with invading aliens and furious natural disasters?

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 29, 2013

You cannot say, in the terms of the life and career that Emmerich has built for himself, this is not the apex of his work. The world blows up. The world blows up a lot. The world blows up fantastically. There are worst quests in life.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jun 22, 2013

Emmerich favours hoisting his camera high and dry to give audiences the best panoramic view, but it removes all tension from proceedings - you're always at a safe distance.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 29, 2012

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Nov 18, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Two and a half hours of heaving and cleaving and crashing and crunching.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 30, 2011

Cusack, with his one-of-the-guys face and his nice way with child actors, does creditable work as an Average American Dad trying to put things right.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Sep 7, 2011

2012 is the rare case of a bad film that I'm nevertheless obliged to recommend you see.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | May 6, 2011

Most of all, I liked the airlifting of giraffes to ark safety via helicopter and the bizarrely unreasonable cheeriness of the beleaguered survivors who all but shout "hip-hip-hooray" after billions of other Earth citizens lose their lives.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 4, 2011

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Massive global destruction -- not for worriers.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Despite the relentlessly depressing, gruesome subj

The characters aren't very deep, but some of them

Not much blood and gore (one character gets his le

One character is a plastic surgeon who does breast

Fairly light use of strong language, although ther

A wealthy character brags about his fancy new Bent

Two minor adult characters are shown drinking. One

Parents need to know that director Roland Emmerich's 2012 is an intense, violent disaster movie, with billions of anonymous characters getting killed during massive scenes of destruction (earthquakes, tsunamis, and more). Although the tone is mainly exciting, the relentless devastation could terrify or depress…

Positive Messages

Despite the relentlessly depressing, gruesome subject matter and millions (billions?) of deaths, the film's main point is that family is ultimately the most important thing in life. Several characters risk their lives or well-being for family members, and one character tries (tragically) to contact his family too late. Certain selfish characters are redeemed by saving family members, and the movie makes a point of mentioning that the most selfish character of all has no family. Aside from that, a few characters look beyond family to try to rescue total strangers as well.

Positive Role Models

The characters aren't very deep, but some of them still demonstrate marked heroism and selflessness. Hero Jackson Curtis previously ignored his family in favor of his career, but he returns to them during the disaster, learning how to connect with, love, and forgive them. Later, he risks his life to save thousands of people. Other characters clash over methods by which to choose who's rescued, with some seeing only the bottom line, but others arguing that everyone has a right to live. The president shows heroism and self sacrifice.

Violence & Scariness

Not much blood and gore (one character gets his leg gouged in a giant gear), but the massive destruction results in countless anonymous deaths. The movie does focus dramatically on certain known faces as they meet their terrible fates, but it rarely stops to linger on them. Two children watch as their father falls to his death and another character is ground up in some machinery. Smaller moments of hostility at a boxing match, and a character punches another character in the face. A mass suicide is mentioned on a news report.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

One character is a plastic surgeon who does breast implants. He meets one of his patients, and they mention her surgery several times. Gordon and Kate briefly discuss "making a baby" of their own. Kate and Jackson kiss once, and there's a near-kiss between Adrien and the president's daughter.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Fairly light use of strong language, although there's at least one "f--k," a few uses of "s--t," and other words like "damn," "ass," "hell," "goddamn," and "oh my God." One character flips another one off.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

A wealthy character brags about his fancy new Bentley. Pull-Ups diapers are discussed and shown.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Two minor adult characters are shown drinking. One takes his first drink in 25 years when he discovers that the world is going to end.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that director Roland Emmerich 's 2012 is an intense, violent disaster movie, with billions of anonymous characters getting killed during massive scenes of destruction (earthquakes, tsunamis, and more). Although the tone is mainly exciting, the relentless devastation could terrify or depress many viewers (both kids and grown-ups), especially those who've been through natural disasters themselves. In other words, this is no movie for kids anxious about the state of the world. Fans of the genre will find some of the effects truly impressive, but there's not much in the way of character or plot depth. Expect a little bit of kissing, drinking, and swearing (including "s--t"). All that and it's almost three hours long. ... To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (40)
• Kids say (174)

Based on 40 parent reviews

What's the Story?

When the sun suddenly begins bombarding Earth with a higher neutrino count, heating up the planet's core, it all-too-quickly leads to massive natural disasters -- from earthquakes to tsunamis -- and even shifting of the north and south poles. A secret project is underway in Tibet to build "arks" to rescue a certain number of people, but most of the seats have been reserved for the world's richest and most important people. While scientist Adrian Helmsley ( Chiwetel Ejiofor ) collects data and fights against greed and corruption, small-time Los Angeles author Jackson Curtis ( John Cusack ) tries to rescue his ex-wife ( Amanda Peet ) and their two kids, get them to Tibet, and secure them seats on one of the arks. But can he do this impossible task in time?

Is It Any Good?

At best, it's a nearly three-hour film packed with several tons of clichés whose best features are explosions and general destruction. At worst, it's a gruesome, depressing subject as viewed from the seat of a passing roller coaster.

Disaster movies are usually very popular and have long managed to thrill plenty of people with their huge scale and awesome special effects. Since 2012 (which is tied to a much-debated Mayan prophecy that supposedly names that year as the one in which the world will end) is one of the biggest and most spectacular to date, it will no doubt follow suit -- and, in terms of visual effects and clear, exciting filmmaking, it is well done. And the impressive, appealing cast does its level best to read through the third-rate dialogue without too much eye-rolling. But anyone looking for character depth, powerful emotional content, intelligence, poetic images, or personal expression of any kind is advised to look elsewhere.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the movie's destruction and violence . Much of it is of a sci-fi/fantasy nature, but if you stop to think about it, the enormity and frequency of it can be overwhelming. Is this kind of violence more or less upsetting than gory horror movies?

One of the movie's major themes is the importance of family. Does that come through amid the chaos and destruction? Did the movie make you feel closer to your own family?

Why do you think the wealthiest and most important people were chosen for seats on the arks? Should other people have gotten a chance? What would have been a better way to go about the process?

Do you think a disaster like this could occur? If so, is it better to try and prepare or better not to worry about something we can't control?

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 13, 2009
• On DVD or streaming : March 2, 2010
• Cast : Amanda Peet , Chiwetel Ejiofor , John Cusack
• Director : Roland Emmerich
• Inclusion Information : Black actors
• Studio : Columbia Tristar
• Genre : Science Fiction
• Run time : 158 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : intense disaster sequences and some language.
• Last updated : March 10, 2024

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Movie Review: 2012 (2009)

• General Disdain
• Movie Reviews
• 7 responses
• --> November 29, 2009

If you’re wondering (and you know you are) what a movie strictly built around the use of special effects looks like, look no further than 2012 . It’s got a backstory that was clearly etched on a wet napkin during a drinking binge at the local Applebee’s after director Roland Emmerich discussed the idea of making some super-awesome computer effects depicting the destruction of civilization with his drinking buddies. (Run-on sentence much?)

Still reading?

Okay then, let’s get right to the crux of the story — the world is going to implode in upon itself in the year 2012. In a very incredible fashion too. That is, of course, if you believe those zany theorists who say the lining up of the planets and the lack of a Mayan calendar after December 2012 spells our doom. Assuming you do, the devastation is bad-ass.

Whatever that supercomputer that beat Kasperov in chess was made up of, it is one thousand-fold weaker than what was used to develop the action sequences in 2012 . The CGI in this film is simply head scratchingly bewildering.

• Hawaii is reduced to fiery embers due to lava spitting mega-volcanoes.
• Los Angeles is reduced to rubble in thanks to magnificent earthquakes ripping massive rifts throughout the city.
• The Eastern seaboard of the United States and a big chunk of Asia are swallowed up under the waves of enormous tsunamis.

The attention to detail of all this chaos is quite impressive. I took notice that the animators went through the trouble of showing expressions on peoples faces on a falling bridge fragment that was away from the camera’s focus.

Too bad the story couldn’t keep in stride with the computer graphics.

2012 is littered with characters with no redeeming qualities and a story that, at it’s heart, is a preposterously boring “love at all costs” tale. Anchoring it is John Cusack as Jackson Curtis one of those doom and gloom theorists that lost his family because of his beliefs. He gets the last laugh though when he comes to learn of an “ark project” slated to save the ultra powerful and rich. He races in a nick of time to save his ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet) her new beau Gordon Silberman (Thomas McCarthy) and kids Noah (Liam James) and Lily (Morgan Lily).

And that’s basically it. Kate and Jackson predictably reconcile while the brood journeys from L.A. to some remote location in China that the world powers have decided was ground zero for the survival of all living land creatures on Earth. If I went further into the glaring holes of the story, told in part through characters Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a science advisor to the White House and Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson), a bizarre conspiracy theorist, you’d lose further faith in the film.

As it stands 2012 is a movie with probably one of the strongest showings of computer graphics ever attempted. You’re probably better off checking for these scenes on YouTube, however, than attempting to sit through the pain associated with actually sitting through 158 minutes of tedium.

I'm an old, miserable fart set in his ways. Some of the things that bring a smile to my face are (in no particular order): Teenage back acne, the rain on my face, long walks on the beach and redneck women named Francis. Oh yeah, I like to watch and criticize movies.

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'Movie Review: 2012 (2009)' have 7 comments

November 30, 2009 @ 9:33 am Braken

2012 is so farfetched and stupid it can’t be anything other than a joke.

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November 30, 2009 @ 11:28 am Jack Courtney

For some, this could be a very boring movie while others may find it very interesting since it will relate the end of the world. In addition, the movie will show how to value your own family.

December 1, 2009 @ 8:19 am Rose Taylor

Hello I have recently seen 2012 movie and I like it very much and it was interesting for me to watch it..Its full of special effects.You have given good review about a movie.

December 4, 2009 @ 8:37 am Forbrugs

2012 has a splendid computer graphic effects that has never seen ever before. The story line was not different from the previous end of the world movies like, The Day after Tomorrow and so on. Even though the movie portray the Noah Arc in terms of Modern and high technology available today.

December 11, 2009 @ 2:19 am darrein

Hi, Do we really believe in some sort of “change” is going to take place in 2012 based on an ancient culture? In my opinion religion was formed to explain things that were unexplainable to ancient people. Why’d it rain? The rain god made it so. Why is the person acting crazy? He has a demon.

What is my ponit?

That if there is some “shift” in thinking it will go unnoticed by the masses. Most of us won’t realize it’s happening until we can look back and see the paradigm shift in retrospect. I believe nothing magical or alien will happen on that day. The same way nothing happened in the year 2000 when all computers were going to fail and the second coming of Christ was supposed to happen. Movie looks interesting though.

January 14, 2010 @ 2:56 am Julie Simpson

I’ve got to agree with the bad rating given but disagree with the 2012 being the “strongest showings of computer graphics ever attempted”.

The CGI made me feel like I was watching a computer game; in particular the earthquake scenes with the limo and the one where Cusack tries to get onto the plane at the airstrip after finding the map. One word: TERRIBLE. Towards the end of the movie, CGI was actually pretty decent IMO…had a very Star Trek feel to it.

The kill factor of the whole movie is that it didn’t touch the audience on an emotional level unlike Armageddon for example where even I shed a few tears. You could watch this if you have nothing else particularly better to do for 3 hours …or better yet you could re-watch the far better Armageddon, and save yourself an hour.

January 16, 2010 @ 1:09 am parfums

I did not like the movie anyways. I had seen the trailer on you tube and they looked wonderful. I had been waiting for this movie like many others since the last year(2008 Nov when I had first saw the trailer via Digg). But it is sad that Emmerich could not maintain that part… He ended up messing the whole thing – there were too many frontiers to be shown and he could do justice to none! Sad but the movie failed to live up to my expectations.

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Review by Brian Eggert November 13, 2008

Everything you’re expecting from 2012 is exactly what you’re going to get. Roland Emmerich’s magnum opus is the pinnacle of his career. The director’s pithy efforts like Independence Day , Godzilla , and The Day After Tomorrow feel like small indie gems in comparison to this overblown, wonderfully destructive piece of demolitionist eye candy. Utterly impossible by any stretch of the imagination, the movie is a cheesy, one-dimensional, epic-sized spectacle that does exactly what it promises to—destroy the Earth. Audiences unwilling to dismiss reality for some very expensive entertainment by way of mass death and landmark obliteration will not appreciate its full effect.

As predicted by the Mayans hundreds of years ago, the year 2012 marks what they believe to be the end of the world. They even gave us an exact date: December 21, 2012. Emmerich’s movie opens near this point, as strange natural occurrences stir scientists to inquire about what’s happening. It seems neutrino bursts from the Sun are causing the planet’s core to boil, making the crust unstable and causing a whole lot of ruckus in the process. For the basis of his movie, Emmerich credits Charles Hapgood’s 1958 Earth Crust Displacement theory, but how the Mayans knew this would happen is never explained. Once the rumblings cause massive earthquakes to tremor, deep chasms to rupture open, super-volcanoes to blow, and tsunamis to roll, speculation into the Mayans’ curiously advanced methods of global ruin detection hardly matters.

Of course, there’s always some crackpot who no one believes, but who turns out to be right about his wild doomsday theories. And when the fit hits the shan, everyone regrets not listening to him sooner. Said nutjob is played by Woody Harrelson, who’s having fun playing his hippie radio show host-cum-prophet. His more respectable counterpart is chief science advisor Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who warns the ever-grave U.S. President Thomas Wilson (Danny Glover) just in time. In a joint effort with various billionaires and governments, the world comes together to build arks in the Himalayas, but only a select few of the planet’s population and wildlife will fit on the arks. Regardless, the president’s chief of staff, Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt), secures spots for the world’s elite on these ships, because there’s always a slimy character like this in disaster movies.

Most of the action revolves around Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), a failed writer turned limo driver for Russian bazillionaire Yuri Karpov (Zlatko Buric). Curtis’ ex-wife (Amanda Peet) and their two kids (Liam James and Morgan Lily) now live with the nice “other man” Gordon (Tom McCarthy), much to Curtis’ dismay. But you can believe that Gordon, along with 99% of the world’s population, gets wiped out, leaving Curtis and his estranged wife to rekindle their love. And why not? After learning about the arks from Harrelson’s wacko character while on vacation in Yellowstone, Curtis proves himself a superhero faced with the task of saving his family. He out-drives an earthquake and outruns the blast path of a super-volcano—impressive for a writer. Most of the bit characters in the movie are set up only to help Curtis along on his quest to reach China, and most die while carrying out their Good Samaritan deeds.

So what’s all destroyed in the movie? California falls into the ocean. All of America is covered by toxic ash. Las Vegas falls into a hellish crevasse, sparking a moment of irony, while Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue and St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome topple over, killing many God-fearing Christians in the process. Emmerich spares no one, but he takes particular joy in depicting Christian icons crumbling. The John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier gets carted by a giant wave and crashes into the White House, marking the second time Emmerich has destroyed the president’s home. Tibet is waterlogged by a tsunami. And when it’s all over, the planet is covered in water.

Emmerich and his co-writer Harald Kloser arrange a series of near-escapes and ridiculous resolutions. The clichés are piled on top of one another in an almost comic fashion. There are only so many times a character can say “My God!” or “You have to take a look at this, sir” before the audience starts laughing. But there’s also the impression that the movie is fully aware of its own corniness, and we’re in on the joke. Aside from John Cusack outrunning planetary calamities, the movie’s many other characters outrun their own waves and explosions and what-have-yous in airplanes and cars and on foot. It’s all preposterous but meant in the escapist disaster movie spirit. Several shots feature a bystander gawking in awe of some terrible force approaching them, a familiar shot for Emmerich (borrowed from Spielberg). Plenty of nice characters undeservedly die, while irredeemable jerks are fully redeemed. And in the end, there’s an inappropriate feeling of hopefulness among the survivors, only because dwelling on the fact that virtually everyone on Earth is dead would be a major bummer.

The computerized special effects throughout are big and bold and staggering, and they should be since Emmerich’s budget was a reported $250 million. He uses that money to carry out his ultimate goal of obliterating the Earth, which has been a long time coming as those of us who have followed his work know. The action scenes unfold with clarity, so we always know what’s what, unlike the majority of over-edited blockbusters. Some of it looks shoddy and stupid, but the acting for this sort of drivel is above average, so the few CGI missteps are easily forgiven. Cusack and Ejiofor are both too good for the material, but they’re welcome protagonists. Harrelson, after his unexpected turn in Zombieland earlier this year, gives another memorable-if-throwaway performance. And Platt does a nice job making the audience despise him.

Defending Emmerich’s latest movie comes with some difficulty for this critic, since the director’s work is generally empty commercial fare, and the majority of his movies are unwatchably bad upon revisitation. So let’s be clear: This isn’t a “good movie,” but it’s an entertaining one. 2012 is trash, to be sure, but it’s well-assembled trash that’s bigger and better than anything Emmerich has made before. Shockingly, despite its 2-hour-and-40-minute runtime, this pageant of devastation keeps our interest for the duration. Never mind logic, because it’s defied in almost every scene. It’s even sort of fun to point out the clichés throughout. Thinking about it too much is missing the point of this mindless exhibition. Just sit back, eat your popcorn, and watch Emmerich destroy the world. Why else would you see a movie like this?

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'2012': Disaster Strikes (And Strikes, And Strikes)

Bob Mondello

Jackson Strive: The movie might be shorter if he were just a little slower, but John Cusack's bookish Jackson Curtis always manages to stay a step ahead of the advancing abyss. Columbia Tristar Marketing Group hide caption

• Director: Roland Emmerich
• Genre: Action Drama
• Running Time: 158 minutes

Rated: PG-13 With: John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Glover, Amanda Peet

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Say this for Roland Emmerich's latest movie: It is a disaster.

Granted, for maybe an hour of its running time, 2012 is a reasonably kinetic catastrophe. Anyone who's seen the director's previous pictures (Godzilla, Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) has to have known that he and his army of digitizers would arrange for the world to end not with a whimper but with a particularly showy bang.

But when the Earth isn't swallowing up whole cities or belching lava at low-flying planes, the poor actors keep opening their mouths, and that proves problematic. When they're screaming it's fine, but all too often they make the mistake of trying to explain what's going on.

California, you see, is falling apart, not from budget problems but from a shift in the Earth's crust. The shift has been caused — the actors tend to talk very fast when science comes up, so I may have misheard this — by solar flares heating up the Earth's core. Or by a weird alignment of the planets, as predicted by the Maya. Or maybe both.

Whatever: The powers that be have somehow managed to hide the coming calamity from everyone on Earth except for one Los Angeles limo driver (John Cusack). And lucky for him, the apocalypse doesn't affect cell phone coverage, so he can call his ex-wife (Amanda Peet) and get her to pile the kids into the limo just seconds before their house crumbles. Also piling in, to his initial consternation, is his wife's new boyfriend (Thomas McCarthy); happily, he has taken a few weeks of flying lessons and will come in handy later.

From there, the family starts a mad scramble, seemingly to stay in the path of whatever new catastrophe nature throws their way. On the ground, they're chased by some surprisingly linear earthquakes; in the air, they dodge not just volcanic ash but flying subway trains.

And then — after much digitized North American carnage and a bit of comic distraction from an amusingly addled Woody Harrelson — comes the worldwide deluge, with waves crashing over the Himalayas.

Many silly notions get advanced in 2012, not least among them the idea that Woody Harrelson (right) is the one nongovernmental guy who has seen the trouble coming. Columbia Pictures hide caption

Many silly notions get advanced in 2012, not least among them the idea that Woody Harrelson (right) is the one nongovernmental guy who has seen the trouble coming.

Say what you will about the excess, but you have to admit that Emmerich hasn't lost his flair for destroying major landmarks: Who but this disaster-porn artiste would think to go bowling with St. Peter's dome? Still, his insistence on both quoting and topping every disaster movie from The Poseidon Adventure to Home Alone does make the End Times seem pretty much endless.

There's perhaps 40 minutes of cheesy but genuinely spectacular special effects — the stuff you came for — and two additional hours of painfully idiotic plot. Trust me, your mind will wander as a lapdog is reunited with its mistress and the president's daughter (Thandie Newton) finds true love with a rather full-of-himself geologist (Chiwetel Ejiofor).

It's nice to see that none of these folks is overly troubled by the death of the planet's 6 billion other inhabitants. But then you won't be, either, which is sort of the magic of this movie: By the time it's over, you'll feel like it is 2012 already, and you'll have such a headache that it'd be kind of nice if the whole world went away.

2012 Ending, Explained

What if judgment day is nearer than humankind thought? What Roland Emmerich’s ‘2012’ attempts to do is to visually re-enact the Biblical apocalypse in all its visceral grandeur, and as cities and countries are overtaken by catastrophic natural forces, the epic scale of the grand narrative is revealed, albeit with a degree of American supremacy. Due to a solar disturbance of a massive scale, the Earth faces the imminent threat of a cataclysmic event, and a sort of social Darwinism is acted out.

The disaster film builds many characters, only to kill them in the wake of the doomsday events, but Chiwetel Ejiofor (Adrian the geologist), John Cusack (Jackson the sci-fi writer), and Thandie Newton (the President’s daughter), some of the highlights of the cast, remain to write the future of civilization. If the film has baffled you to the end, and we believe it should, we have your back. SPOILERS AHEAD.

2012 Plot Synopsis

The ancient prophecies of the Mayans have a date for the ending of the world. It happens to be in the year 2012. A cataclysmic event in the solar body is heating Earth’s core, and it happens only once in 640,000 years. There are earthquakes of small magnitude and other natural disturbances, and the media is worried. The film begins with a worried geologist from America, Adrian Helmsley, who gets to know from the Indian astrophysicist, Satnam Tsurutani, about the collapse.

Helmsley hurries back to Washington to show his findings to the Chief of Staff, Carl Anheuser, who understands the gravity of the situation and takes Adrian to the President. The President, Thomas Wilson, is a man of ideas and experience, and he sets a policy action in motion. The governments of the leading countries in the world have known about the catastrophe, and they have been preparing for the moment for several months.

Two years ago, in the G8 Summit in British Columbia, China, along with the G8 countries, agreed to build nine arks (and not spaceships) to face the apocalypse, and each craft would have the capacity of a hundred thousand people. In the Tibetan territory of China, a large manufacturing hub and port are being constructed, and a local boy named Tenzin joins the arc. Back in America, sci-fi author Jackson Curtis (Cusack) does not lead the most perfect life.

His book has sold only about 500 copies, his marriage has ended in a divorce, his wife has custody of his children, and he works as a chauffeur of a wealthy Russian named Yuri Karpov. Jackson’s ex-wife Kate lives with her boyfriend, Gordon Silberman, and the two children, Noah and Lilly. Jackson takes the children on a camping trip to the Yellowstone National Park, where he discovers a lake that has been turned into a volcanic bog.

He is taken to Adrian, the geologist who happens to be a fan of his book, ‘Farewell Atlantis.’ After taking his leave, he comes across Charlie Frost, a conspiracy theorist and a radio show host with relevant information on the apocalypse. Jackson is terrified to see the truth in Charlie’s claim, and he takes the children back to Kate. Yuri gets the notification of boarding the ark, and at his order, Jackson goes to escort his children, Oleg and Alec, to safety.

But Los Angeles is crumbling down, and they must hurry their way towards the aircraft that will take them to the ark. It’s a good day for the apocalypse, and while the world breaks down under them, the aircraft heads to the mythical Cho Ming valley, where the ark is prepared to commence its journey. Will the world be annihilated, then? Will the lands be taken over by the seas? It certainly feels so.

2012 Ending: Does the Human Civilization End in 2012?

If you have lived till now, you know that 2012 was quite an ordinary year compared to 2020. I am, however, talking about the film, which sets the date of the apocalypse as December 21, 2012, following Nostradamus’ and the Mayan calendar’s claims. In the narrative of the film, Charlie is the first one to claim that the world will end on a specific date, and the rest of the film works to reinstate the claim.

There have been speculations about the ending of the world in 1998, the millennium, and 2012. ‘2012,’ the film, attempts to build its narrative on the premise of the world’s ending declared by conspiracy theorists, whose rumors instilled great paranoia in some people at the end of the first decade of the century. Coupled with actual global warming incidents and human exploitation of nature (like the shrinking of the Aral Sea), these rumors stroke an ominous chord for many.

People created doomsday bunkers and gathered food supplies for the supposedly imminent apocalypse. However, when we talk about the cinematic universe of the film, it manages to avert the possibility of a complete collapse of human civilization in the final moments of exposition. From the beginning, the film sees through an essentially anthropomorphic and particularly Christian lens in its modern-day retelling of the story of Noah’s Ark. In that regard, it remains hopeful till the end.

The hope is embodied in the figure of the optimistic writer Jackson Curtis and the righteous scientist Adrian Helmsley, and in the end, it seems that humanity has survived the cathartic catastrophe. However, there are class divides apparent amongst the global populace, and not everyone has the same fate. Satnam, the astrophysicist who first blew the whistle, is not saved. As the mega-tsunami floods the entire subcontinental plateau, we see Satnam embracing death. The latent message is one professed by social Darwinism, that the survival of the fittest presupposes certain political, social, and economic positions.

What Happened to the Earth?

Throughout the film, the audience has seen massive volcanic eruptions, seismic shifts, and skyrocketing waves taking down iconic cities. In a climactic scene, the ark hits Mount Everest, but the people within it are saved by God’s grace. Asia and America, as we know them, submerge in water, and Mount Everest is no longer the highest peak in the world. However, in a final moment of discovery, Africa is the only continent that has survived the apocalypse, and the Drakensberg Mountains near the Cape of Good Hope is the new highest point of the world.

However, there is a goof here. The scientist tells the team that the mountain is situated in Kwazulu, Nepal, while the screen shows a location in southern Africa. We all know that Nepal is in Asia. Leaving this minor glitch aside, it seems that humanity lives to see another day. The ark takes up speed as it moves towards the Cape of Good Hope. While the world is not inhabitable per se, much of the world’s population has died, and it remains unsure whether the ark people will be welcomed in Africa. However, the film manages to reinstate faith in humanity in the final moments.

Is Jackson Alive?

Towards the end of the narrative, the ark is headed towards the Himalayas, while there is a major malfunction in the craft. The hydraulic gate is jammed, which allows water to flow into the vehicle. Jackson and the crew have submerged in water, but in a terrible feat of achievement (it’s not his first one), Jackson manages to pull the obstruction and close the gates. At the same time, the ark hits Mount Everest, and while the impact is supposed to destroy the ship, it’s a miracle, and they are saved. While Gordon convincingly dies in the trap, the catastrophe brings Jackson and Kate closer.

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One of the weapons Marvel used in its climb to comic-book dominance was a willingness to invent new characters at a dizzying speed. There are so many Marvel universes, indeed, that some superheroes do not even exist in one another's worlds, preventing gridlock. The Avengers however do share the same time and space continuum, although in recent years, they've been treated in separate, single-superhero movies. One assumes the idle Avengers follow the exploits of the employed ones on the news.

"The Avengers," much awaited by Marvel comics fans, assembles all of the Avengers in one film: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, the Black Widow and Hawkeye. This is like an all-star game, or the chef's sampling menu at a fancy restaurant. What always strikes me is how different their superpowers are. Iron Man ( Robert Downey ) is just an ordinary guy until he's wearing his super-suit. Thor ( Chris Hemsworth ) swings a mighty hammer. Hawkeye ( Jeremy Renner ) wields a bow with arrows so powerful they can bring down alien spacecraft. The Hulk ( Mark Ruffalo ) is a mild-mannered guy until he gets angry, and then he expands into a leaping, bounding green muscle man who can rip apart pretty much anything. Captain America ( Chris Evans ) has a powerful and versatile shield. Then there's Natasha ( Scarlett Johansson ), aka the Black Widow. After seeing the film, I discussed her with movie critics from Brazil and India, and we were unable to come up with a satisfactory explanation for her superpowers; it seems she is merely a martial artist with good aim with weapons. We decided maybe she and Hawkeye aren't technically superheroes, but just hang out in the same crowd.

When I see these six together, I can't help thinking of the champions at the Westminster Dog Show. You have breeds that seem completely different from one another (Labradors, poodles, boxers, Dalmatians), and yet they're all champions.

The reason they're brought together in "The Avengers" is that the Earth is under threat by the smirking Loki ( Tom Hiddleston ), Thor's adopted brother, who controls the Tesseract, a pulsing cube of energy that opens a gateway to the universe; through it, he plans to attack Earth with his fleet of reptile-looking monster-machines. It goes completely unexplained where Loki now resides, how these dragon-machines are manufactured, and so on. Both Loki and Thor are obscurely related to the gods of Norse mythology, as we know from last year's " Thor ," but let's not drift into theology.

Nick Fury ( Samuel L. Jackson ) sends out a call to the Avengers to team up and meet this threat. He runs SHIELD, the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, which is all I know about it. He's headquartered on a gigantic aircraft carrier that's also a hovercraft and can become invisible. By bringing the Avengers together, he of course reopens ancient rivalries (i.e, my hammer can beat your shield), until they learn the benefits of Teamwork, which is discussed in speeches of noble banality. So you see this is sort of an educational film, teaching the Avengers to do what was so highly valued on my first-grade report card: the concept of Working Well With Others.

These films are all more or less similar, and "The Avengers" gives us much, much more of the same. There must be a threat. The heroes must be enlisted. The villain must be dramatized. Some personality defects are probed. And then the last hour or so consists of special effects in which large mechanical objects engage in combat that results in deafening crashes and explosions and great balls of fire.

Much of this battle takes place in midtown Manhattan, where the neatest sequences involve Loki's ginormous slithering, undulating snake-lizard-dragon machine, which seems almost to have a mind of its own and is backed up by countless snakelings. At one point, an Avenger flies into the mouth of this leviathan and penetrates its entire length, emerging at the business end. You won't see that in " The Human Centipede ."

"Comic-Con nerds will have multiple orgasms," predicts critic David Edelstein in New York magazine, confirming something I had vaguely suspected about them. If he is correct, it's time for desperately needed movies to re-educate nerds in the joys of sex. "The Avengers" is done well by Joss Whedon , with style and energy. It provides its fans with exactly what they desire. Whether it is exactly what they deserve is arguable.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

The Avengers (2012)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action

143 minutes

Jeremy Renner as Clint/Hawkeye

Tom Hiddleston as Loki

Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man

Chris Hemsworth as Thor

Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury

Scarlett Johansson as Natasha/Black Widow

Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Capt. America

Directed by

• Joss Whedon

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