What would you do if the world as you knew it was coming to an end? What if the ground shock and opened up beneath you, swallowing your house, your street, your block and your city. Would you just lie down and die or would you fight against the overwhelming odds and find someway survive?
In the movie 2012 Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) decides to fight impossible odds and government cover ups, in a mad attempt to save his ex wife Kate Curtis (Amanda Peet), his son Noah (Liam James) and daughter Lilly (Morgan Lily), as well as Kate’s new boyfriend Gordon (Thomas McCarthy).
Though the movie focuses mainly on this one families fight for survival, there are other characters around them. The whole world is dying, thus there are several other little stories weaving into the main storyline. Woody Harrelson makes an appearance as a pickle eating talk show radio host who is operating out of a camper in Yellow Stone National Park.
The first 45 minutes of this movie are pretty awesome (in both meanings of the word) visually. There are incredible scenes of buildings collapsing and the earth ripping apart as Jackson drives a limo (perhaps the worst vehicle to have when outrunning the end of the world) through the disintegrating city of Los Angeles.
They continue their escape by plane and the special effects are stunning, They weave and bob there way past tumbling skyscrapers as people are screaming and falling to their death. It is visually stunning and wholly unbelievable. There is no way they could have escaped you can’t out run an earthquake that’s just not how it works.
At one point their plane is engulfed by the super hot ash cloud of a volcano and emerges from the blackness completely unscathed. The movie is simply scientifically implausible. A shift in the poles and the weakening of the Earth’s magnetic field would result in catastrophic changes making the earth entirely uninhabitable for humans.
I feel that given the amount of disbelief a person must suspend make the movie kind of goofy drama. The diffusing jokes are kind of campy, and it’s got and abc family feel to it. Plus all the mini stories have a similar theme and it begins to get boring and predictable. If you have seen The Day After Tomorrow then you have seen 2012 it is just your average end of the world movie with fantastic special effects. But, even the effects start to those their awe-inspiring quality after 2 hours.
The premise of the movie is based on a Mayan Calendrical date which some believe foretells the end of world. People actually frantically fear the approach of doomsday based on the misinterpretation of an ancient an complex astrological system. In reality the Mayans believed 2012 to be the end of a cycle, whatever this broad and ambiguous term may mean, its probably not Armageddon. Bottom line, the movie is predictable, scientifically impossible, and way to long.