Director Roland Emmerich is the Irwin Allen of the 21st century.
Allen became the master of disaster films in the 1970s with "The Swarm," "The Towering Inferno" and "The Poseidon Adventure." His formula was to cast a long list of recognizable actors, destroy everything in the biggest way possible and completely ignore plot.
Emmerich, whose past calendarcentric disaster films include "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow," offers his take on how the world will end in 2012, as predicted by the Mayan calendar.
Just as Allen threw everything but the kitchen sink on the screen, Emmerich has loaded his 160-minute disaster epic with a nonstop string of special effects-heavy scenes of destruction. Look closely and you can see where Emmerich even throws the kitchen sink into the mess.
The Earth is destroyed in spectacular fashion from Los Angeles slipping into the ocean to Yosemite being turned into the biggest volcano on the planet.
In the middle of the mayhem is writer-turned-chauffeur Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) who pieces together the end of the world scenario through hints from a looney radio disc jockey (Woody Harrelson), the bratty kids of a Russian billionaire and past research he's done for his books. He scoops up his estranged family and heads to the secret location where the government has been working on a way to save at least a few genetically perfect, unbelievably wealthy people.
In Allen's day, it was actors like Paul Newman, Gene Hackman, Fred Astaire and O.J. Simpson who were cast to face the disasters. Emmerich's also called on some familiar acting guns: Thandie Newton, Danny Glover and Oliver Platt. The names are different, but the demands on the actors are the same -- keep running until you must face your heroic end.
Forget logic when it comes to the storyline. This is the kind of movie that's traditionally released in the summer where the only thing that matters is how much the theater walls shake during each and every explosion. There are a few lame attempts to talk about the measure of humanity, but that's all just window dressing for this disasterfest.
Although 40 minutes should have been cut from "2012," Emmerich hasn't padded the movie with silly things like meaningful dialogue and character development. The emphasis on pure action makes it like watching "The Towering Inferno," "Earthquake" and "The Poseidon Adventure" at the same time.
TV and movie critic Rick Bentley can be reached at rbentley@fresnobee.com or (559)441-6355. Read his blog at fresnobeehive.com.
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Video: One-min. review '2012'