Lloyd Dobler Saves the Day!

Instead of a formal review of 2012, allow me to be totally obvious and cheesy and cliched, and to sum up my feelings by quoting R.E.M.: "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine." Basically, there's a lot of cool special effects, a lot of preposterous plot points, plenty of close calls, Danny Glover as the President (not getting too old for this sh*t, apparently), all the expected cheeseball lines of dialogue ("I thought we'd have more time," etc.), stubborn government officials, a good-hearted scientist, a rich jerk who doesn't make it to the end of the movie, and a lot more cool special effects. Monks fall prey to a huge wave. The Vatican is destroyed. Las Vegas crumbles. The White House gets swept away. The entire state of California falls into the ocean. Oh, and just when you think things can't get any worse for the world, there's an Adam Lambert song on the soundtrack! What a disaster!

John Cusack stars as Amanda Peet's estranged husband, a father of two, a writer, and a daredevil limo driver, who saves his family and civilization — all while never removing his tie! But it's when you stop to notice those kinds of details that you miss the fun of 2012. This is yet another big, dumb, overly long, but enjoyable action film from director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow), where stuff gets destroyed and it all looks great. What the film is lacking in script quality and common sense, it makes up for in technical wizardry. If you go to see this one expecting anything other than that, then you're just kidding yourself. I'm giving 2012 a B.