It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel . . . like I have a headache.
You will, too, after seeing "2012," director Roland Emmerich's monstrously over-the-top end-of-the-world epic. Nothing is enough for Emmerich. The movie is too long, the special effects too brazen, the coincidences too jaw-dropping, the story too ridiculous. After 158 minutes of watching continents flood, cities sink and an aircraft carrier destroy the White House - by landing on top of it (!) - you won't want popcorn. You'll want an aspirin.
It all ties in with end-of-the-world prophecies and predictions - end of the Mayan calendar, Nostradamus, solar activity cranking up to the boiling point, all that.
Turns out, at least in this telling, that the world's leaders have known about looming disaster for a while, but they haven't told anyone about it yet, so as not to incur panic. Just as well, probably, because they're wrong about everything they forecast. Meanwhile they're working out an exit plan for bigwigs for when the bell finally tolls.
Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) is unaware of all this, of course. He's a struggling writer whose wife, Kate (Amanda Peet), has left him and taken their two children with her. She's now living with her boyfriend, Gordon (Tom McCarthy), who, what do you know, has been taking pilot lessons. Wonder if that'll come in handy?
(Note: We're operating on the theory that spoilers are impossible for a movie whose premise is the end of the world.)
Noble government scientist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) figures out that the end is being accelerated. Less-noble government honcho Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt, who by the end of the film ought to have a mustache to twirl) is more of a pragmatist. It's a shame we can't save more people, but the species must survive. That about sums up his feelings.
U.S. President Thomas Wilson (Danny Glover) sides more with Helmsley, but really, does that even matter? As shaky as the science is, the storytelling is worse.
The special effects are stunning, however, particularly the destruction of cities. (For whatever reason, tidal waves and tsunamis look less real.)
Curtis takes his kids camping and runs into a conspiracy nut (Woody Harrelson, born to it) who warns him what's about to happen. It takes only a few fissures to convince Curtis he's right, so, just in time, he gets his wife, her boyfriend and the kids out of town just as a massive earthquake hits - by outdriving it. Later, and more than once, Gordon will fly their way out of trouble, zooming just ahead of massive destruction.
After a chunk of California falls into the ocean and the rest of the world is similarly crumbling, exploding or flooding, President Wilson decides it might be a good time to let the nation know something bad is happening. Good idea.
The special effects slow down long enough for a debate over the unfairness of who lives and dies. Heavy handed? Uh, yeah. This is the kind of movie where, when Rome gets it and the cracks and fissures first appear on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, they split the hands of God and Adam. Of course they do.
If it sounds absurd, that's because it is. But the effects are so unapologetically outlandish, it almost rises to the level of guilty pleasure. Almost.
"We were warned," the tagline for "2012" goes. Now you have been, too.