Why can't we have an end of the world without kids?

Rating: 6/10 (5 September 2010)

Recap: Dr Adrian Helmsley is invited to his friend and colleague's research facility in India. There he has discovered that the neutrino flux from the sun has changed and is irrevocably heating up the Earth's core. This in turn will lead to the destabilization of the Earth's crust, and practically the end of the world. Adrian, who is employed by the US government rushes this to the presidential adviser, and secret plans are made how to save humankind. The problem is, they can't save everybody. Jackson Curtis is a more or less failed writer, separated from his wife and two kids, who during a camping trip to reconnect with his kids stumbles on the secret. A race and fight to save his family starts with disaster striking all around them.
Comments: Emmerich, the director, said that he wanted to make one final disaster movie, and that he wanted to pack everything in it. He did. 2012 is a spectacular disaster movie, that probably should be enjoyed at s big screen as possible. The effects are grand, a non-stop show of apocalyptic destruction. Floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, plane crashes, falling skyscrapers, I think we got most, if not all of the disaster movies covered. So, there is nothing new really, but just more of it, with to date unparalleled effects.
Unfortunately this is a effects show through and through. The background story is regrettably also a complete reuse and repetition of older disaster movies. It robs the movie of all suspense and wonder of what is going to happen next. Who will survive is no surprise, but predictable from the get go. Why it was decided to include, no check that, to rely on a story of a absent separated father that finally comes through and saves his family, is beyond me. It is completely worn out, and something Emmerich himself has used before, but that's also the answer to why. If he didn't have to work on the story, all the focus could be put into the effects, which everything is all about anyway. And why not, when the movie is already saving the world and humankind, why not save the family unit too?
So yet again we have a movie that suffers from the Annoying Kid Syndrome (which actually seems to be growing into an epidemic). To be truthful it doesn't suffer as bad as many other movies, but at key and crucial moments, the kid is either totally helpless and just screaming, or tries to be the hero and save them all, even if they're just ten years old. The most plausible outcome of that should be the demise of the kid, the family and in this movie a couple of hundred thousands more. Yet it is never so. Understandably, what writer or director would kill off a child? But leave them out of it from the beginning and problem solved! Because screaming and ten year old heroics are not that enjoying. But that may be because I got no kids of my own yet
Besides the kid characters (I've got absolutely nothing against the kids themselves!) I found the cast good. John Cusack is a solid veteran that has been around before but especially Chiwetel Ejiofor is good, and underrated in general. Amanda Peet and Thandie Newton bring some known names to the cast, but their supporting roles are too small for them to have any real impact on the movie, which is very much male oriented.
It is long, so make time for watching it, but it is rarely dull, even though predictable as a street sign. Sit back, turn of that brain, and enjoy the end of the world, that is the spectacular world of special effects.
6/10