Step 1: Throw in bits and pieces from all other disaster movies, up the global destruction ante, turn on the waterworks (literally and figuratively) and you’ve got 2012.
Step 2: Revel in the preposterous-ness of the plot. I’ve never had a problem suspending my disbelief when it comes to a disaster movie. I mean, I even clenched my teeth when they had to outrun freezing ice in Day After Tomorrow, for chrissakes. So, in that regard, 2012 is yet another popcorn-fueled implausible thrill ride. There’s some mumbo jumbo science reason on why the earth falls apart Dec. 21, 2012 – something about solar flares, the earth’s core heating up like a microwave and the earth’s crust displacing itself – and then there’s the mythical hoopla that the Mayans predicted this would happen (which I have to admit does scare me a little). In any event, a disaster movie has to have its main characters you hope make it through the mayhem. This time it’s Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), a struggling novelist; his ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet); their two kids; a geologist (Chiwetel Ejiofor); the U.S president (Danny Glover); his art historian daughter (Thandie Newton) and more. Sadly, not all of them make it, but the ones who do, well, think of Noah’s Ark in terms of their survival. If they could just cut out the sappy, I’ve-always-loved-you, Dad moments, it would have worked just fine.
Step 3: Revel in the disastrous-ness. Seriously, with 2012, master disaster filmmaker Roland Emmerich has paid homage to almost every calamitous film ever made — from The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, Airport, Deep Impact, to Emmerich’s previous global warming disaster flick Day After Tomorrow. Of course, the destruction level in 2012 is turned up to, like, 11 – and dammit, if L.A. doesn’t once again get pummeled. It must just be fun to destroy the place where movies are made, especially by Emmerich, who has had it blown up by aliens, ripped apart by tornadoes and now, of course, split it into pieces by The Big One, with those pieces then falling into the ocean (you’ve all seen the posters, so you know). Washington D.C. gets it again, too, as well as Las Vegas, Rio de Janeiro, Honolulu, Yellowstone National Park, the Vatican and the Himalayas. New York is spared this time, at least onscreen.
Step 4: Wonder why John Cusack would revel in any of it. It’s not that he’s copping out or anything by starring in 2012. On the contrary, he’s one of the few characters who doesn’t kneel knee-deep in the schmaltz and rarely elicits an eye roll. Same goes for Woody Harrelson, as a pickle-lovin’ pirate radio host, who has been preaching the government conspiracy to cover up this impending calamity. But knowing how Cusack picks thought-provoking films for the most part, a disaster flick seems like an odd choice – unless he read something more in the script than what ended up onscreen. Frankly, his participation was one of the things that intrigued me about 2012 – that and the mass destruction, of course. Maybe Cusack has a thing for disaster films, too, and if that’s so, I tip my hat to you, sir.
Level of difficulty in watching 2012: Pretty seat-grabbingly easy. Plot, schmlot, if the end of the world happens like this, let’s hope Roland Emmerich can film it.