2012 or: how I learned to stop worrying and say screw the Mayans

For the level of blockbuster movie that this movie seems to be, this movie has some terrible CGI.  Cracks in the earth and waves rocking a cruise ship are pasted onto the screen, seemingly with Microsoft Paint.  The background looks like it is animated at worst or some kind of video game at best.  Everything about this movie seems fake and lacks any real elements.

The movie stars John Cusack as a slacker, single dad who stumbles across a restricted military area while trying to spend some quality time with his kids.  From there he learns, along with the audience, that the world is ending.

 

The movie features some dramatic irony that would make Shakespeare himself cringe.  "I feel like there is something holding us apart," Cusack's ex-wife's is told by her new husband and then suddenly, the supermarket they are shopping at is split in two by an earthquake.  And guess what happens.  The earthquake literally splits the couple apart. 

That scene alone makes me want to stab whichever high school creative writing teacher gave the screenwriters an "A" and prolonged their unreal aspirations of being the next Faulkner.

Then Cusack's family watches the TV as the best Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator the director could find reiterates that everything will be fine.  And then, bam!  An earthquakes destroys most of the neighborhood, while Cusack rescues his family in his limo as the city crumbles behind him in yet another display of god-awful CGI.

Oh my god!  As Cusack is trying to get away from downtown L.A., his wife's new husband tells him to take the freeway and then the freeway collapses.  The dramatic irony is honestly going to be the death of me.  Boom!  I'm dead...

Some old guys sing something about "it ain't the end of the world" while the world is literally ending, causing me to lose faith in subtlety.

I think the movie tries to make some kind of political and social statement.  It's only the rich who are able to make it on an ark to survive the deteriorating Earth (no, I'm not making that up).  And I guess covering up the fact that the world is ending is a smart move if you don't want to cause mass hysteria, but it won't help you get reelected.

Anyone who tries to spill the beans about the covered-up apocalypse is murdered, in a statement that is not applicable at all to anything in today's politics.

There's definitely an anti-religious statement being made, though.  The U.S. president decides to pray instead of board the ship for safety and then he drowns.  How stupid of him.  And, while the Vatican is being destroyed by earthquakes, a crack separates Adam from God.  Where is God, now? 

The movie is trying to be hopeful and finish with some sort of happy ending, but I don't know how the fact that one family and a few thousand people survives out of the entire rest of the world is good news.  I guess we are just supposed to be satisfied knowing John Cusack is alive.

My best suggestion if you want to enjoy this movie is simply to get as ridiculously drunk as you can because there's no way anyone will enjoy this movie otherwise.