How many doomsdays do we need?

In theaters Friday: 2012, Pirate Radio

New on DVD/Blu-ray: Spread, The Ugly Truth, Up

By my count, Roland Emmerich has tried to destroy the planet at least five times. He has melted the ice caps, sent otherworldly aircraft after Will Smith, unleashed giant spiders, a massive lizard beast and a teleporting Egypt-obsessed alien race after us. Now the world’s greatest cinematic terrorist is back with another Earth-shattering blockbuster 2012, based on the notion that the Mayan calendar (and therefore the planet, duh!) ends in the year 2012.

In two weeks, John Hillcoat’s The Road, adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s bleak, post-apocalyptic novel, arrives in theaters, too. The Road aims for something more esoteric in its hair-raising scenario, but the question both movies ask is the same: How will humanity survive when civilization does not?

Disaster movies have been around for a long time of course, going back at least to the Cold War and A-bomb-inspired 1950s. But this year has definitely seen them trending up. The genres, messages and details may change, but make no mistake, year after year we are presented with high-profile films about The End, with most finding financial or critical success or both. This year we’ve already had 9, Knowing and Zombieland. See also: 28 Days Later, Armageddon, Children of Men, I Am Legend, The Day After Tomorrow, Deep Impact, Synechdoche, New York, Waterworld, etc.

My question is, why do we like watching our planet get destroyed?

Dire circumstances make heroes out of men, and Americans love their heroes. Teenage boys and young men like seeing heroes forged on film because they put themselves in these fantastic scenarios and ask, “What would I do?” and “How would that feel?”

Plus, Americans like starting over. We sign up for short-term car leases. We change jobs every three years. We get divorced a lot. So that future frontier ahead of Viggo Mortenson and his young son in The Road may be rough, but at least it is new. And therein lies hope. That’s why many of our ancestors came to this continent in the first place and founded our great nation. Then less than 100 years later, half of us tried to start over again.

Of course, now we are facing compound economic uncertainties with our recession continuing, budget deficit rising and unknown effects on our health care costs looming. In times like these we enjoy seeing things hit rock bottom on the big screen because then our economic realities don’t seem so traumatic. Like, maybe I can’t afford to eat out for lunch everyday anymore, but at least a fireball hasn’t destroyed my city.

Whether intentional or not, these movies reflect the mood or our culture and comment on society by playing on our lowest common denominator: our fears. What if all the ice caps melt tomorrow? What if the terrorists win? What if everyone gets sick? What if the government is the only thing keeping us from being savages?

“When the chips are down, these ‘civilized people,’ they’ll eat each other,” said modern cinema’s most effective anarchist, The Dark Knight’s The Joker. A lot of people believe that, or at least, they can’t shake that notion beyond a reasonable doubt, and doubt can lead to fear, especially when a massive earthquake is pulling California into the Pacific.

2012 asks “What did the Mayans know that we don’t?” And in the middle of all of its schlocky, $260 million CGI glory, when John Cusack is piloting an airplane through—yes, through!—collapsing skyscrapers as Los Angeles buckles and caves in below, just remember that as photorealistic as the explosions look, the end of the world, so far, is only something that happens in the movies.