Follows the laws of cartoon physics.

Rating: 3/10 (15 March 2014)

Remember how Wile E. Coyote always lived even when he fell off a cliff, or got run over by a train? This was about that ridiculous. The John Cusack character should have died 83 times in this movie. All I kept thinking about was how well it would lend itself to one of those "Everything Wrong With 2012" video commentaries. The last time I remember a movie being this implausible was Speed, and it left a bad aftertaste that's never faded. But that was at least an enjoyable flick.
Faster than a speeding bullet, more invincible than Evel Knievel, John Cusack's character has a knack for jumping chasms and being at the right place at the right time. Through luck, magic, miracles, superpowers, whatever, he makes one incredible split-second escape after another. This device is tremendously abused, not just in how close the calls are, but the sheer number of them.
At every turn, something goes hopelessly wrong (beyond just the natural disasters). But even that doesn't stop the charmed Cusack from coming out of it alive (by the skin of his teeth). And with people dying all around him, every single one of his family makes it. Every falling fireball misses them...every time they pull away in a vehicle or plane, a gorge opens up exactly where they need to go so they have to jump it. Over and over and over and over. There is no relief from the ridiculousness.
The pinnacle of ridiculousness is this scene: As soon as John Cusack finds the map that will save his family, a huge chasm opens up in the ground, and John naturally falls right into it. BUT – never fear – he manages to grab onto the edge in the nick of time and pulls himself up...still holding the map in his hand!!! Is this Emmerich guy an adult?? I understand he wants to take us on a nonstop roller coaster ride, but... If they would simply have made the earth open up a few meters away, instead of a millimeter, or they could make their getaway by a few seconds, instead of a quarter second EVERY TIME, it would still have been suspenseful, but plausible enough to not make you want to scream at the screen.
Their plane (since the charmed Cusack is on it) glides effortlessly between falling buildings. It's the end of the world and they're seriously low on fuel -- why do they never dump the weight of all those excess autos? But...they continue on their hopeless journey. In the end, they only made it because...their destination had shifted! What luck.
I saw the ship plowing into the White House in the trailer and thought I was in the mood for a big disaster flick, so I picked up the DVD in the bargain bin.
The FX were grand as you would expect or could hope for, and the acting was passable. The problem was with the script. The dialogue, the characterizations and the plot -- all dreadful. I cry pretty easily, but it was very hard to feel anything for any of the characters in this movie. Except maybe Danny Glover. They tried to make jokes but they weren't funny. Only Woody Harrelson's character was somewhat interesting.
The thing about selling tickets to the arks was played up as some terrible fault in humanity, but really – how else were they going to get the money to build them? The governments of the world all cooperate quite civilly in the face of this impending catastrophe that would put men at each other's throats. They've gotta kill anyone who figures out their plan...yet they're not worried about any of the people who bought tickets leaking the info? Like what if someone declined the offer because they didn't believe the world was going to end? Oh, maybe they were killed as well? In the wake of the Japanese tsunami, one has to wonder with all the nuclear plants and toxic chemical stores how doomed they would really be no matter what..
Right up to the end, as the every-man-for-himself mentality would have been peaking, the plot did not let up on its ludicrousness. As the arks are taking off, forget that the clock is ticking and every second counts...forget that there will not be enough food/supplies and everyone on board could die and this all will be for nothing...Chiwetel's impassioned plea convinces every world ruler to let everyone on at the last second.
And it ends with a lame love song...
And now I will happily part with this DVD.