It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I don’t feel fine)

Roland Emmerich was smart to not make “2012” about religion.

Everyone knows bigger box office numbers and fewer controversies come when the antagonist in an apocalypse scenario is a white, conservative politician and not God. But I imagine the whole religion thing wasn’t forgotten. It’s just the rest of the movie is so lowest common denominator, any theology would just be above this material.

How will the world end in Roland Emmerich’s fantasy? Solar explosions will send large numbers of neutrinos to the Earth, heating up the planet’s core and consequently causing massive earthquakes and tsunamis along with the magnetic shifting of
the Earth’s crust.

I can buy that. There’s a hilarious discussion string on imdb.com that will prove even this theory is ridiculous. But I’m more concerned about the rest of what Emmerich tries to put past us.

His special effects are 100 percent green-screened. Let me be the first to say that as remarkable as his creations are, they are still clearly synthetic, and I don’t find them realistic. Because they are fantasy, they can accomplish miraculous feats that defy the rules of physics.

I learned from “2012” that earthquakes and collapsing runways will always incorporate the domino effect as they chase down the escaping plane or car full of characters with speaking roles. When a protagonist changes modes of transportation from being in a Winnebago to being on foot to being on a plane, the speed of the explosion can change accordingly to remain right in the hero’s wake. And every time a plane takes off (three to be exact), it will be inches in front of runway collapsing into Earth’s
core with just barely enough space to get it off the ground.

Some of the initial forms of destruction are punctuated with ridiculous comic relief, which is not a welcome relief after suffering through the rest of the drama of this poorly written script. Plot holes galore (why can’t an engine run if a door isn’t closed?) and numerous moments of stupidity (grab the whole box of maps when a volcano eruption is behind you; don’t waste time looking for the one you need) all add to the hilarity.

But some of the more sentimental moments with John Cusack and Amanda Peet are handled nicely, and although Cusack’s character’s survival is not a victory, nor a solution to the apocalypse, I cared what happened to him. At the very least, “2012” is better than the second “Transformers” movie. It’s more fun, not as visually cluttered and much less reprehensibly offensive.

That’s not the end of the world, right?