2012 is an odd movie to contemplate. Its advertisements basically made it out to be a giant disaster movie that would play out like the film Independence Day, which was directed by the same man, Roland Emmerich. Upon seeing the film, though, it becomes clear that, while the similarities are apparent, there is one comparison to this film that stands out above the rest.

Remember how on South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone make fun of melodrama in movies by playing out really ridiculous situations? After the situations meet their climax, the characters look forward, dumbfounded, and utter "...My God!" under their breaths. Later in the same episode, when things reach a fever pitch, characters shout at each other in an exaggerated tone that would exemplify their angst and uncertainty in a clichéd situation that has been played out in hundreds of other movies and shows before it. Imagine if those elements from South Park were put into a two-and-a-half hour film, and weren't played for laughs but rather for dramatic effect. That's 2012.

2012 is indeed a spectacle of a disaster film. It is also a dumb film at its core. It relies on clichés to make up what little story it has. The scenes that play out during the course of the movie are scenes that have been played out in other, more or less notable disaster films. It makes giant, unprecedented leaps in logic that are hard to ignore. It is a large, loud, stupid film that is fun merely for its value as a form of "dumb entertainment."

There really isn't anything to analyze about this movie. It doesn't have any underlying themes or overarching message. It just takes characters and situations that have been already been portrayed to death and put them in an apocalyptic situation. It is not an original film. However, in the end, it is so fantastically stupid that it becomes fun to watch.

What's the plot of the film? Essentially, we follow around Jackson Curtis, played by John Cusack, trying to save his kids, ex-wife, and her new boyfriend from Earthly destruction. Then we follow the President, played by Danny Glover. Then we follow a scientist, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who has been studying the impending apocalypse and is also pining over the President's daughter, played by Thandie Newton. Then we follow people on a cruise ship. Then we follow a Russian guy and his kids. Then we follow a Chinese family. There is so much going on in the film, it's hard to disseminate what's important. Emmerich throws so many characters in the film that each of them lose importance as they come and go. The only character we come to care anything about is John Cusack's Jackson, and that's only because Cusack does a good job of making his character more dimensional than he may seem on the page.

Again, 2012 is a visual feast. The disaster sequences in the film are brimming with fire and destruction that become the most engaging part of the film. Earthquakes are massive and catastrophic. Volcanic eruptions are fiery and beautiful. Floods are giant and sweeping. Amidst all this, though, we get ridiculous situations that should induce awe, but instead compel laughter. A rookie pilot dips and dodges around volcanic fireballs falling all around the sky in a small, five-passenger plane, like in some sort of video game. Another character drives a limo through a massive earthquake in Los Angeles, diving straight through collapsing glass skyscrapers and skimming around fault lines, as the earth caves way just inches behind the vehicle. We even get a scene where a character drives a car from out of the back of a crashing plane. It's all so ridiculous that it becomes funny.

Emmerich doesn't even realize how stupid the movie is. At one point, one character preaches to another that his actions could cause the extinction of the human race, and then asks him if he would want that on his conscience. Did no one stop to tell Emmerich the empty logic behind this statement? How he can't have that on his conscience because he, too, would be dead? That's one example of the film's drastic stupidity that carries on throughout the film in many forms, and never relents or catches itself in mid-sentence.

Finally, though, the action movie clichés. This film has them all. So many, in fact, that it stuffs the film full of scenes that play off like the aforementioned South Park episodes, only without the sardonic undertones. In the end, these clichés make the film cold. There are ultimately too many elements to care about, which are so lazily presented that we eventually don't care about most of them. It just comes off as a lethargic imitation.

2012 is not a horrible film, and this is mostly because in the end, it has unintended camp value. The action is huge and outrageous, and the story is littered with amusing stupidity. However, this does not excuse the film for leaning too much on the transparent stereotypes used over and over again in films like it, and not doing anything original with them. 2012 may blow stuff up well, but that alone does not make the film significant.