You’ll notice a new feature in the theater when you show up to see 2012: a Brain Checker, provided by the good people at Emmerich Industries.

Here’s how it works. A smiling young technician will attach a vacuum pump to your head and in less than a minute suck your brain out your ear and deposit it safely in a stainless steel canister. You’ll then be guided to your seat (you won’t understand how to get there on your own, after all) and told to watch the nice pictures on the big screen down in front.

The result is utterly amazing. With my brain gone, I was free to exult in the pure mindless wonderment of 2012's fabulous special effects, revel in its majestic vapidity, and celebrate its machine-like adherence to stereotype.

It was all good.

Did the—to be charitable—dubious science behind the world-destroying, Mayan-predicted cataclysm bother me? Not in the slightest. Science shmience.

Did Director Roland Emmerich’s bland rehashing of the now-obligatory motif of the fractured family coming back together against all odds, and at the expense of decent people’s lives, annoy me? Sweet lord no. People, especially young children, are indeed fully capable of instantly forgetting that they love and are deeply committed to others when the plot calls for that, right? In Emmerich’s universe they are.

Did the Saturday Morning Cartoon-like escapes of John Cusack and his kids rub me the wrong way? Get serious. I was dancing in the aisle (until the technicians gently led me back to my seat and fastened the leather restraints on my wrists). Planes flying between collapsing skyscrapers. Limos driving through buildings. Bentleys dropping out of cargo holds. Recreational vehicles jumping flaming chasms. That’s entertainment.

Did the insulting misuse of top-notch acting talent like John Cusack, Danny Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, and Stephen McHattie get my goat? Duh. Of course not. Were there people talking in this film? Saying stuff? I didn’t even notice. How could I with all that noise, all those exploding lights?

When the film was over, a technician used a big squirt gun to shoot my brain back through my ear and into my head. My vision cleared. I suddenly recalled where I was and why I was there. I was seeing a film for Asimov’s Magazine. I looked down at my notepad. Blank. I hadn’t written a thing.

In the unlikely event you haven’t seen the trailers for this flick, here is a thumbnail. A once-every-six-hundred-thousand-years alignment of the planets is about to take place. Brilliant scientist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) realized a couple of years ago that the alignment was coming and that, as the Mayans foresaw in their prophesies, it would cause civilization-ending global chaos —oceans and continents rising and falling, drastic shifts in the Earth’s crust, and so forth. He then warned White House Science Advisor Carl Anheuser (a superb Oliver Platt). President Thomas Wilson (an uninspired Danny Glover) quietly sets in motion a long range plan to allow a small number of mostly paying customers and world leaders to survive.

The movie opens with the alignment starting. Struggling writer and limo driver Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) learns of this secret plan by accident from his Russian mobster boss, and paying customer, Yuri Karpov (the magnificent Zlatko Buric, probably the single best thing about the movie) and tries desperately to get his family, including ex-wife Kate Curtis (a perpetually bad-haired Amanda Peet) to the gigantic survival vessels being constructed in China.

That’s more or less it. Sure, there are some other threads. For instance, the First Daughter (Thandie Newton) falls in love with the brilliant scientist. But they’re trivial.

Along the way, most everyone dies. Cities slide into the ocean. The Himalayas are swamped by tidal waves. Director Roland Emmerich has essentially copied his 2004 mega-hit The Day After Tomorrow. Just about the same characters doing just about the same thing in just about the same situation—only with bigger earthquakes and tsunamis. And, as with The Day After Tomorrow, Emmerich feels obliged to toss in a bit of political commentary. Here it’s both the immorality of keeping the truth from “the people,” until it’s too late, and the unfairness of selling births on the survival vessels to the highest bidders. Listening to the primary characters debate these issues is far more painful than watching Los Angeles disappear into the Pacific.

So, is 2012 a disaster or a disaster film? That depends. If you’re hoping for a fresh take, some new concepts, maybe an unexpected twist here or there, forget it. This is the mother of all formulaic block busters. Everything is mathematically calculated to fit together perfectly. The problem is, movies aren’t algebraic equations. They’re stories—about people. This a dullard’s take on the genre. Sodden of mind. Leaden of spirit. Totally unaware of itself, of the triteness of its composition, and of the patronizing nature of its denouement. Emmerich can make interesting SF. Stargate is proof of that. But his natural tendency is to sacrifice ideas for high percentage money shots. 2012 is one prolonged money shot.

If, on the other hand, you want the formula, done on the grandest scale so far put to screen, with a production value in the hundreds of millions, 2012 will admirably fit the bill. You will definitely get your money’s worth.

2012
Columbia Pictures
U.S. Release Date: November 13, 2009
Director: Roland Emmerich
Screen writers: Roland Emmerich and Harald Kloser
Running Time: 158 minutes