Doomsday comes early in ‘2012’

German director Roland Emmerich has had aliens blow up the White House, Godzilla run roughshod over Madison Square Garden and drowned Manhattan in a tidal wave. Now the entire globe is facing catastrophe in his apocalyptic thriller 2012. Based on the cult of doomsday prognosticators who misread the ancient Mayan calendar, believing it ends in the year 2012 and theorizing that the lost South American civilization had somehow derived that year as the end of the world as we know it. John Cusack and Amanda Peet star as a husband and wife desperate to outrun catastrophe and get their family to one of several safety ships located in Asia, where the leading governments of the world have a plan to save as much of humanity as possible. Meanwhile, the president, his wife and a brilliant scientist scramble to survive the destruction. Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton co-star. Rated PG-13. (Image courtesy Columbia Pictures)