2012: John Cusack gets his Shelley Winters moment

I had to check the date on my cellphone on leaving the cinema just to make sure it wasn't actually 2012. This film goes on an awfully long time without offering one single original idea on the subject of the end of the world but, really, should I have expected anything else from the director of previous end-of-civilisation blockbusters "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow"?
All of the genre's crucial cliches are present and correct. The story opens wide with heads of state and scientists grappling in secret with the impending end before zooming in to make the political personal in the form of a fractured American family. John Cusack is Jackson Curtis, a self-absorbed writer turned chauffeur whose lack of attention to his nearest and dearest - wife Amanda Peet, son Noah and Daughter Lily - has resulted in him losing them to nerdy, unlikeable but wealthy plastic surgeon Gordon. Noah, of course, resents his dad for not being there, while Lily expresses her distress by wearing silly hats and wetting the bed. Believe me, I'm not giving anything away when I suggest that, given this premise, the odds are really pretty good that it'll fall to Jackson to save the world and in the process prove to his disfunctional family that he's worth a second chance.
The story is more predictable than the plot of a pantomime.
Great cities fall in spectacular orgies of CGI destruction, famous landmarks crumble before our eyes, the US President (Danny Glover) demonstrates the kind of selflessness we rarely see in real politicians, and the Curtis family (plus Gordon) enjoy the kind of miraculous good luck that sees them survive countless brushes with death while those all around them succumb to collapsing skyscrapers, earthquakes, car crashes, tsunamis, and stampeding crowds. The only element missing is New York City. 
In an astonishing display of self control director Roland Emmerich deviates from the tried and tested apocalypse movie formula and resists the urge to include scenes of the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and Times Square disappearing beneath a monstrous tidal wave. This unspoken acknowledgment that the graphic dismemberment of Manhattan has been done to death by disaster movies is however his only deviation from the formula.  
That means that while the story is about the destruction of the entire world, the only country that really matters is the United States. Aside from a token nod towards an Indian scientist and his family, the only people who are given anything approaching a rounded character are American. Other nationalities are portrayed as rioting, praying, or hysterical masses devoid of individuality and, therefore, not in need of our sympathy.  
The strict adherence to formula aside, my main gripes are the blatantly in-your-face product placements for Sony's widescreen tvs and Vaio laptops, and Woody Harrelson's scenery chewing performance as an end-of-the-world prophet. Thankfully he's the first one to get smacked in the head by a house-sized chunk of rock proving that justice can prevail even in an apocalypse.

Emmerich deserves credit for stirring this stale collection of ingredients so vigorously that it never has time to congeal into the offensively smelly lump it deserves to be. 2012 hurls He hurls Jackson from one near death experience to the next at the breakneck speed of a themepark rollercoaster ride generating something akin to genuine excitement in the process. Meanwhile US scientist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who's seen the whole thing coming, runs around saving humanity (the faceless mass variety) while falling in love with the President's daughter (Thandie Newton). Yes it's patently ridiculous but so brazenly so that it's fun.

Emmerich saves the best for last, giving Cusack his Shelley Winters moment just when you thought it couldn't possibly get anymore implausible. If you've seen "The Poseidon Adventure" you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't it's worth digging out a copy of this 35 year old disaster blockbuster to see how Hollywood did it before they had computers to do it for them.
I can't see 2012 being as fondly remembered 35 years from now. It's undemanding escapist fare - and the $65 million opening weekend box office take would suggest there's a big demand for such fare - but there's nothing memorable about it. Fun but forgettable.