“2012″: Not the end of the world for Cusack’s career

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When Director Roland Emmerich makes a movie, it’s usually a disaster. With “Godzilla,” “The Day After Tomorrow” and “Independence Day” credits to his name, Emmerich’s catastrophe films run the gambit from not-very-good to not-half-bad. “2012″ falls somewhere around decent.

It’s your typical big budget, end-of-the-world flick, with an all-star cast to boot. John Cusack stars as hero Jackson Curtis; following a hunch that the world may be coming to end, he grabs estranged wife Kate (Amanda Peet) and children Noah and Lilly, and gets out of town. The only hitch is that Kate has a new boyfriend the kids adore, and everyone seems to think Jackson is more than a little nuts.

Meanwhile, Woody Harrelson plays a really crazy person with a radio show announcing the end of days in Yellowstone National Park, Danny Glover is the president making all of the important decisions in Washington, D.C., the president’s daughter and a young scientist may or may not be flirting and a big scary Russian guy has a stake in a Vegas boxing match. Confused yet? We haven’t even gotten to the Tibetan monks, cruise ships singers or the young Indian scientist who discovered it all. And every one of these characters has a heartfelt moment with some family members they’re saying goodbye to, too.

In short: The movie is overcomplicated with character drama. Even with a runtime of two hours and 38 minutes, when the world is ending, there’s just not enough time to see every character say goodbye to their father in a heartfelt phone call from one side of the globe to the other. And for the record, we don’t trust the critics after this one.

The things that “2012″ does right are the things you hope and expect a disaster movie to do right: Mainly, the special effects. As earthquakes start to rock the Curtises’ home state of California, they truly destroy, and it’s pretty exciting to watch.

Cusack stands out too, because he usually stands out, and his stellar acting helps keep the cheese factor away from some pretty unbelievable moments in the film. Peet does a good job as well, as does Chiwetel Ejiofor as the young scientist Adrian Helmsley in Washington, D.C. And it’s a good thing they all come through, because not all of the actors do. Johann Urb is tinny as the Russian pilot, and Danny Glover, we hate to say it, is pretty unconvincing.

But all in all, “2012″‘s shortcomings are not the actors’ faults, and all of them will come out of this with a big budget credit to their name and move on in their careers unscathed. Rather, “2012″‘s shortcomings are all in its identity: Is this a catastrophe movie, or are we striving for Oscar here with the character interplay?

It all goes back to Emmerich. Perhaps after one too many disaster movies, he’s started to get greedy, and thinks he can have both. He can’t, but we wish him well in his next apocalypse movie, because we’re pretty sure it’s coming. Eventually.