As titillating as apocalypse stories may be, I’ve never really believed that the world is going to end on the winter solstice in 2012, as “predicted” by the Mayan calendar. I don’t think they really predicted the end of the world; that’s just as far in the future as they bothered to calculate. Any culture that couldn’t anticipate needing to account for four-digit years a mere 30-odd years in advance should surely understand that kind of shortsightedness.

And so we have this grand new CGI-fest of an apocalyptic vision, 2012. Frankly the biggest surprise to me is that John Cusack would have anything to do with such a piece of overblown shite as this, but I suppose he’s an “A-lister” now, so it’s part of his pact with the devil.

Anyway… this movie looks like a grand spectacle, with a dreadful story. As usual with movies that are grand spectacles. Never mind that it’s set off on the wrong foot from the very beginning of the trailer — the Mayans were not the world’s first civilization. It’s not about making sense; it’s about setting up whatever minimal pretense is necessary to justify the image of an aircraft carrier smashing into the White House on the world’s biggest tsunami. But I think the best moment of the trailer is the highly symbolic shot of the crack spreading across the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, right between the fingers of God and Adam. How come no Hollywood blockbuster writer ever thought of that before?!