2012 (2009)

  This isn't a very good movie, for all that it is supposedly accurate.  The fact that it seems so ludicrous only goes to lend credence to the old adage "Truth is stranger than fiction".

The premise is that the world is destined to end in fire on December 21, 2012 because the Mayans predicted it that way.  Beginning in 2009, the sun starts generating more radiation, causing the Earth's core to heat up and the crust to start shifting around wildly.  This sparks massive earthquakes worldwide.  The coast of California falls into the sea (as pictured in the above poster), Yosemite becomes a super-volcano, Hawaii is engulfed in lava, and the human race is doomed.  Except for around 400,000 people who were either chosen by their governments for their respective skills or bought their way on board for a billion euros a seat.  Those people get to board giant arks being built in secret behind a Chinese dam on the Tibetan border.

Jackson (John Cusack) is not one of those people.  He's just a guy who published a sci-fi book that didn't do well who is trying to stay connected to his two kids after a divorce.  Thanks to a timely trip to Yosemite where he meets a crazy ham radio operator (Woody Harrellson), Jackson finds out about the whole she-bang.  Fortunately, he also moonlights as a limo driver for a Russian oligarch (Zlatko Buric) who has tickets to Ark #3.  He gets his family and flies from LA to Vegas just before California ceases to exist and pimps out his ex's new husband (Thomas McCarthy) as a pilot to get them all on board the Russian's plane for China.

I really couldn't have cared less about all the people involved, though.  I like John Cusack but this could have starred anybody and it wouldn't have mattered.  The only reason to see this movie at all are the effects and some of them fall apart on a smaller screen rather than a theater, I think and by 'fall apart' I mean they just don't look as impressive.  You can see the seams, as it were.