2012

It's the movie that wants to let us know the Mayans were right, and the world will come to an end in 2012, so don't worry about paying those credit card bills, losing weight or sucking up to your boss to get a promotion! It's time to party like it's 1999!

Set in 2012, John Cusack stars as Jackson Curtis - an author and divorced father trying to take his two kids, Noah (Liam James) and Lilly (Morgan Lily), on a weekend camping trip. However, something is askew in our universe.

A few years earlier, Dr. Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), discovered solar flares are emitting a type of radiation changing the structure and stability of Earth. These solar flares are causing the Earth's inner crust to melt and break apart, which has resulted in increased earthquake activity across the globe as the planet crumbles. Of course, upon hearing the news, the rich and powerful people of Earth came up with a secret plan to save their own behinds (and leave the rest of us to rot).

Now, in 2012, the destruction of Earth has begun, and, through as series of ridiculous and completely far-fetched plot twists and coincidences, Jackson has learned of this plan, and decides he needs to save his family, too!

Will the plan to save the rich and powerful of humanity succeed?

Is this the end of days?

Can our noble, but poorly selling, author save his family?

Congratulations, John Cusack! You star in the worst movie of the year!

Beyond being the most formulaic film you will ever see with your own eyes, clocking in at a run time of over 2 ½ hours qualifies 2012 to be used by the military to our strategic advantage. If you want to find Osama Bin Laden, set up huge movie screens all over the Middle East, show this movie, and threaten to make a sequel if he is not handed over to authorities by nightfall.

To state what is wrong with 2012 is to list everything wrong with movies today. Writer/director Roland Emmerich and co-writer Harald Kloser don't have a stereotype or overused plot device that is out of bounds. Our Russian character sounds like Drago from Rocky V after sipping several vodkas. Jackson is a struggling single father who is saddened about his kids starting a new family with Mom (Amanda Peet) and her new husband (Thomas McCarthy). The government official in charge of the whole plan, Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt), becomes meglomaniacal as he extends his power well beyond its present bounds. Even the attempts to insert a moral and ethical dialogue about decisions being made fail miserably since you can't believe any of these people have the ability to weigh such options, and it comes so late in the movie, you have given up any hope of something intelligent occurring.

Yet, what makes 2012 even worse than you can imagine is Emmerich's and Kloser's reliance on inexplicable and inappropriate comic relief as well as the most unimportant and meaningless love story of 2009, 2010, 2011 or 2012. While Ejiofor's character is supposed to be earnest and serious, Emmerich and Kloser destroy any hope of the movie being taken seriously by inserting a goofball conspiracy theorist (Woody Harrelson), pratfalls and sight gags more reminiscent of a bad episode of Gary Unmarried (Are there any good episodes of Gary Unmarried? How is this show still on the air?).

Then, Emmerich relies on cheesy and repetitive special effects and action sequences that look as phony and Meg Ryan's plastic surgery. Airplanes constantly have to elude falling buildings, crumbling runways and smoky dust clouds of filth to get off the ground before it is too late! Our director tosses in a few overwrought, melodramatic goodbye scenes as characters try to contact their loved ones before it is too late! Plus, we get to see a limo AND an RV make death defying jumps Evel Knievel and Jesse James wouldn’t attempt for a $1 million (before it is too late!). We only need one of each, but Emmerich gives us two or three of each for no good reason.

2012 is so bad, it's practically a parody.

2012 is rated PG-13 for intense disaster sequences and some language.