It looks like what the Mayans may or may not have predicted was right, because a lot of weird things begin happening in the year 2012. A solar phenomenon blasts the Earth with a wave of mutating neutrinos, causing the planet’s core to heat to life-threatening levels; massive earthquakes strike the globe, resulting in massive tsunamis, and Yellowstone turns into a giant volcano, the force of which makes the blast that buried Pompeii look like a firecracker.

As the chaos threatens to send California into the drink, Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), a struggling writer whose disaster novel has just been published to critical disdain and public indifference, picks up his estranged wife Kate (Amanda Peet) and their two young children and looks for a way to reach China, where the world’s wealthiest nations have been developing a daring plan to ensure that at least some fragment of the world’s population survives the catastrophe.

CRITIQUE

Roland Emmerich has outdone himself with 2012, somehow actually topping the rampant stupidity of Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and his spectacularly awful Americanization of Godzilla. This movie is dumb, dumb, dumb. It’s also overlong by an hour, repetitive, redundant, and derivative (Emmerich even resorts to copping from himself at several points).

2012 packs every disaster movie cliché and stereotype (yes, every single one) into a tortuous 157-minute runtime, shuns any sort of logic whatsoever, employs science so wonky it makes that of Armageddon look like a collaborative effort between Einstein and Stephen Hawking, and somehow manages to drain all of the fun out of watching California sink into the sea and the District of Columbia get smacked by a wave-borne aircraft carrier. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie this brain-dead take itself so seriously. It’s not a pretty sight.

Had the movie been fun instead of misguidedly self-important, there’s a chance I could have forgiven its other flaws. After all, I happen to enjoy Armageddon, which happens to be one of the dopiest movies ever made, but has the good sense to make no bones about being one of the dopiest movies ever made.

But Emmerich and co-writer Harald Kloser (who also co-wrote the idiotic 10,000 B.C. with Emmerich and has composed music for several of the director’s recent flicks, including this one) actually want us to see this movie as some sort of warning. The Day After Tomorrow (the first half of which I’ll admit to enjoying) was clearly meant as a call to arms on the dangers of climate change (although it’s far too ridiculous and scientifically unsound to be taken seriously), and this movie is clearly meant to warn audiences about...okay, so I’m not really sure what the deal is here. E

mmerich obviously is promoting one-worldism, as well as the need to take care of each other and the myriad other species that populate the planet. And given how the story plays out, you can read some more Chicken Little-esque cries about climate change into the proceedings, although there’s really no way for mankind to prevent what happens here (primarily because it’s impossible), seeing as how aerosol cans, fluorocarbons, plastic bags, greenhouse gases, and Styrofoam cups aren’t in any way responsible.

But here’s what I’d like to know: Who in the hell goes into this sort of movie looking for a lecture? You pay to see buildings topple, tidal waves wipe out major cities, and massive fireballs blow stuff up, not hear characters debate altruism or conservation. Would The Poseidon Adventure be half as enjoyable if all of the mayhem suddenly stopped for a subplot involving the evils of the Japanese whaling industry? Nope.

Bothering to weave a serious message into a disaster movie is like bothering to spend serious thought on the wardrobe for a porn flick; either way you’re just wasting your time. (Then again, I’m in the minority on Avatar, another movie that promises balls-out action and instead delivers an ill-conceived ecological treatise, so what do I know?)

Here’s a list of things I learned from this movie: If a massive emission of neutrinos is ever unleashed by the sun, the only person who’ll spot it is some guy in India who works out of his basement. An ELE-type disaster is both the perfect cure for childhood incontinence and the perfect way to reunite an estranged couple. The Earth’s core can heat to the point where land masses become unstable and are torn asunder, but this won’t cause the temperatures of the Earth’s ocean’s to rise a single degree.

Further, a shockwave that obliterates a mountain range will only kick up a light breeze five miles away. Not only can an ocean liner slam broadside into its port and still be seaworthy, it will suffer no visible damage whatsoever. A volcanic eruption in Yellowstone will coat the District of Columbia with a blanket of ash, but the West Coast and everything in between Colorado and D.C. will remain ash-free. Despite the fact the air intake of a jet engine takes in, you know, air, a jet can fly through a massive cloud of smoke, ash, and flying debris like a warm knife through butter. When you floor it, a Winnebago handles like a Formula One racer. When it comes to speed and maneuverability, an F-18 has nothing on a twin-engine Cessna. A tsunami can bypass China, slam into India, and then reverse course and hit China thirty minutes later.

Even more, when all forms of communication are rendered inoperable, a guy on a mountaintop in India will still be able to use his cell phone to call the cell phone of a guy in an underground bunker in China. There’s always a fueled plane around when you need one. There’s always a pilot around when you need one. There’s always a video camera around when you need one, and that includes any time you might find yourself stuck in a mess of gears even larger than the ones that drive Big Ben. It’s possible to drive a sports car down the ramp of a cargo jet doing Mach 0.5 and hit an icy mountain without damaging the car or the people inside the car. Regardless of where you go, almost everyone speaks fluent English.

The only way to make sitting through a slice of stupid such as this even more of a chore is to accompany the end credits with an Adam Lambert tune. And no matter what happens to the rest of the world...sorry, almost gave away the ending there. I won’t spoil, but let me say this: You remember how the massive ice storm in The Day After Tomorrow stopped right at the Mexican border (pesky Customs agents!)? Well, that’s got nothing on the hilarious final image of this movie.

Does all of that give you an idea of just how dumb 2012 is? If only it were half as fun as it is dumb. On top of its boneheaded desire to be taken seriously, the movie is often downright boring. The first act is nothing but a pile of inanities (Emmerich and Kloser waste an awful lot of time on pseudo-science before eventually ignoring science altogether) and clichés, and the third act is a long slog through the stupid and the dull.

The only entertainment whatsoever is supplied by the middle act, which is when all of the stuff starts collapsing, exploding, imploding, crashing, and sinking. It’s moderately impressive on a technical level (some of the effects are fantastic, some of them fairly awful), but even it gets old after a while, mainly because it’s nauseatingly repetitive. Did you like it when that small plane barely made it off the runway in time? Want to see the same thing happen with a big cargo jet? Can’t speak for anyone else, but I’d have to answer in the negative. Just as I would if you asked if this movie is worth seeing.

THE VIDEO

The 2.40:1/1080p transfer--encoded with AVC onto a 50GB disc--is damned near perfect. The overall quality is hobbled just a bit by a digital look to some shots; Panavision Genesis cameras were employed by Emmerich and cinematographer Dean Semler, and for the most part the visuals here exhibit a film-like quality, but every once in a while a brief shot comes across as flat and unnatural, with some showcasing the fast-motion blur that sometimes plagues digital cinematography.

Other than that it’s a fantastic presentation, sharp, smooth, deep, and so detailed even the most minute intricacies of the effects are easily visible (as are the flaws in the more shoddy effects). It’s not quite reference quality, but it still makes for excellent demo material.

THE AUDIO

Also making for excellent demo material is the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track (available in English or French), which is reference quality. It’s loud, it rarely ever lets up (especially during the second act), and it’s meticulously crafted. Surround action--be it discrete effects or atmosphere and ambient sounds--is perfectly integrated, dialogue never gets swallowed, and the low end thumps and thuds with wild abandon. It’s everything you’d want it to be and definitely everything it should be.

An English Audio Description Track is also included; English, English SDH, and French subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

The commentary by Roland Emmerich and Harald Kloser is merely okay, never digging too deep into the particulars of what undoubtedly was a massive undertaking. A lack of perspective regarding just how goofy the whole thing is also proves to be a drawback.

Picture-in-Picture: Roland’s Vision is a PiP track featuring cast/crew interviews, storyboards, animatics, visual effects breakdowns, behind-the-scenes footage, etc. Unfortunately, it’s nothing special. You’d expect there to be a wealth of making-of material for this sort of flick, and maybe there is, but you won’t find it here. Some of the effects breakdowns cover a lot of ground, but most of the material is presented in brief, intermittent snippets that are far too short to be informative or interesting.

Rounding out the standard selection of extras is an alternate ending (4 minutes, HD), which is really too stupid for words. It was obviously cut early in the editing process, as it’s presented here with early-stage visual effects.

BD-Live connectivity will grant you access to some exclusive movie-specific content (although this is primarily just a collection of trailers) and another of Sony’s movieIQ streams.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Did they ever miss the boat with this one. 2012 briefly, kinda-sorta delivers as a disaster spectacle, but that’s pretty much all that can be said for it.