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A good action movie will suck you in to its story with absorbing visual effects that make you forget just how outlandish it is. How fitting that the big-budget tale

Andy Bockelman

Andy Bockelman's movie reviews appear in the Craig Daily Press and Saturday Morning Press.

“2012” has people falling through the earth’s surface in the midst of the ultimate reckoning.

In 2012, Los Angeles is plagued by an unusually high number of earthquakes, but it’s nothing residents can’t handle.

Struggling writer Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) certainly has bigger things on his mind, such as bonding with his kids (Liam James, Morgan Lily) and coping with the fact his ex (Amanda Peet) has a new boyfriend (Thomas McCarthy) whom the kids prefer to their own father. During a family camping trip, Jackson encounters conspiracy theorist Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson), whose doomsday rantings he doesn’t take too seriously — until the streets of L.A. start to crumble irreparably.

It’s the same across the globe as natural disasters overtake the entire world, proving the ancient Mayans’ doomsday prediction correct.

But, there may be hope for Jackson, his family and the dwindling millions who have not been killed by the overwhelming forces of a world falling apart. The international governments of the planet have been preparing for this day, but getting to the escape rendezvous point may cost people more than they can possibly fathom.

Cusack holds a decent amount of attention as the central character, whose only noteworthy published piece of work just happens to be a novel with plot points strikingly similar to his current predicament. What luck for the wife and kids, not to mention the tagalong boyfriend, who is actually a pretty good guy and a reasonable pilot for only having had a few lessons.

There’s no lack of talent in the rest of the cast, with Harrelson a stand-out as the wily prophet who wholeheartedly embraces his demise. Chiwetel Ejiofor shows conviction as morality-conscious geologist Adrian Helmsley, whose calculations helped predict Earth’s initial meltdown but missed the mark by a bit.

Well, nobody’s perfect, even in chaos.

We’ve get the standard run of higher-ups too, ranging from the noble U.S. president (Danny Glover), to his supercilious underling (Oliver Platt), to Jackson’s Russian billionaire boss (Zlatko Buric), who figures his bank account will prevent the inevitable.

There’s not a lot of scientific relevance in a movie that teaches us that as long as you go fast enough, you can outrun fissures bursting from the ground, molten fireballs or tidal waves, be it in a limo, a Winnebago, a plane that rivals the Spruce Goose, or just by foot.

Any high school science student could debunk the mumbo jumbo explanation for the planet’s sudden destruction, given by screenwriters Harald Kloser and Roland Emmerich, teaming up for another bout of worldly obliteration after “10,000 BC.”

You have to hand it to director Emmerich, though: He creates a heck of an apocalypse.

But despite orchestrating scenes of pandemonium beyond comparison, he actually retains some affecting moments as his characters are forced to fight and sacrifice for their very lives.

His symbolism is pretty on-the-nose as worldwide icons of government and religion are annihilated with ease, but it still works, with the crumbling of the Washington Monument, the Sistine Chapel and Brazil’s “Christ the Redeemer” statue coming off as effectively heartrending.

There’s not much room for thinking in “2012,” but you already knew that anything by the maker of “Independence Day” wouldn’t be anything more than a popcorn movie.

Still, it’s a pretty involving one, even if it’s about an hour too long.

But if the whole 2012 phenomenon turns out to be accurate, let’s hope “the powers that be” worry about saving us before the “Mona Lisa.”