I now officially declare that the disaster movie genre is dead. The world has been destroyed by earthquakes, floods, fires, famine, nuclear war, and alien invasion. Mankind has been dealt a fatal blow by these and a host of others. As a famous song has said before, it’s all been done. And perhaps it should be fitting that Roland Emmerich be the one to kill it off with a disaster movie to outdo all disaster movies, to effectively kill off 99.9999999% of the population of our little planet in 2012.

2012 refers to the year that the Mayans supposedly declare that the world will end (that is actually incorrect as I found out doing a little research). The crackpot theories are endless as to how the world will end on December 21, 2012 (one of my favorites is an undetected planet is going to collide with ours), but Emmerich chooses probably one of the most silliest. Due to circumstances barely mentioned, the earth’s core is super-heating and cracking up the fissures, breaking continents apart and changing the polar balances to turn the planet sideways (which is a scientific possibility, but one scientist do not believe will happen over the course of a few days nor created the chaos that the movie rides on). The scientific community has known since 2009 and the governments of the world are putting a plan into motion to ensure the survival of the species. But our main protagonist is a limo driver/failed novelist Jackson Curtis (I wonder if Fiddy had words about that). When camping with his kids, he comes into contact with a government cover-up and a wily radio show host (Woody Harrellson) who tells him what’s going on. He decides to save his kids, ex-wife (Amanda Peet) and her plastic surgeon husband (Thomas McCarthy, director of The Station Agent and The Visitor) by taking them to a place secretly holding the means to preserve human life.

The one thing that really bothered me with Emmerich’s The Day after Tomorrow, yet another disaster movie, was that he couldn’t decide if he would tell a more realistic tale of global climate change or create a roller-coaster ride and therefore left mixed signals to the audience as to what he was trying to do. Here, he learned his lesson and put us through chase after chase as the world collapses just behind our protagonists. This is rather redundant in many scenes, but how else are we going to get caught up with the destruction of Yellowstone, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Washington, DC, just to name a few locations. We do get to see many international cities and locations get flattened and many landmarks fall apart. One of the ones that I thought was resonant was the statue of Jesus in Rio.

But the movie makes me laugh more than scare me. In a way, I’m glad that it does because it reminds me that the filmmakers are not taking this premise seriously and therefore are having fun with the concept of doing the Earth what Inglourious Basterds did to the Nazis.

But the most annoying part of the movie is that repeats itself over and over again like a rinse and repeat from Hell. And they all look the same. And yet for some reason I was still involved because I cared about these characters played by actors who found just enough seriousness and cheese to keep it sliding from one extreme to the other. The only one that really plays it too seriously is Danny Glover as the President. Thankfully he had Chiwetel Eljiorfor and Oliver Platt to keep the scenes from sinking into serious drama.

But the movie is owned by Mr. Emmerich and his technical team who create these stunning visual of the world collapsing on itself. He keeps the tension running long and hard (some might argue too long), but he allows us to really take in the devastation. It should be said that as I hope not to see any more End-Of-The-World movies for some time, this is the second of two well-made EOTW movies made this year (the other being the excellent Knowing). But I’m pretty sure the world will still be around come 2013, I think it would be nice to let go of this tired genre (and possibly the near-tired zombie sub-genre) for a new and more interesting perspective of the world.

All in all 2012 has a log going for it and almost as much going against it. You will have a good time if you are looking for roller-coaster but are too motion-sick to handle the likes of Cloverfield.  Apparently, while humanity very well might end with a whimper, the rest of the planet will go out in a BANG!