I'm that girl who actually went to see "2012" [SPOILERIFIC BUT REALLY ARE YOU GOING TO SEE IT]

So I've been seeing the ads for "2012" for too long - far too long. This is the sort of movie that gets hyped up with all the disaster-type footage and then when you go to see it it's pretty much JUST the disaster-type footage. You know that going in. I was tempted to bring my laptop and take notes a la Michael Buckley but no thanks "2012," you don't warrant that much of my attention. I was really surprised when I texted my man of choice "Do you have any desire to see 2012 with me?" and his response was "Actually, yes." YES, we are those people who type punctuation in text messages because NO it is not that hard and NO I am not going to call us pretentious yuppies about it even though it's probably true.

Let me give you the lowdown: the sun turns into a microwave (I am not kidding) and microwaves the earth so it becomes a celestial Lindor truffle. Though this sounds pretty delicious, it actually means there are earthquakes and tsunamis and other things that kill shit tons of people. In order to save a bunch of people, World governments build these giant ships (aptly named arks) hidden in the mountains in China and save a little over 400,000 people and animals and get the funding for the ships by selling tickets to rich people for 1,000,000,000 euro per ticket. Basically, the rich people live and the poor people are SOL. This is morally dubious (and possibly an indictment of capitalism?) but it gets them their ships so as far as the survival of the species goes we're doing pretty well.

The first thing you need to know about "2012" is that it is NOT a racist disaster flick. They made sure we knew that by giving us a black president, a black scientist to save the world, an Indian scientist clueing us in on the end of the world in the first place, and having all the people who are not from America mostly speak their native languages. Also, the people who die first are not racial minorities - in fact, all the deaths are people sacrificing themselves for others or people who are total friggin' jerks. Kudos! Oh wait though...how successful are those obvious things when the people who survive are mostly from the West and China? Any country loosely tied to the "Save the Children" organization is wiped off the map. Africa gets to be the new home of humanity as a consolation prize since it's been basically irrigated, moved so it's in a North/South America type location, and jacked way the hell above sea level, but I can't imagine it's going to be fun stepping over all the rotting refugees to build a new civilization, do you? (Note: if they think I'm going to buy the "everything is washed away by tsunami waters" argument I'm not. Those people who are still alive are dying of all kids of dead-body-rot diseases inside of two weeks, maximum.)

"2012" excels in the area most disaster movies fail in: the Crazy Guy Who Was Right All Along. Woody Harrelson plays this insane man who lives in a trailer inside Yellowstone (would they really let people do that? I want to do that) who eats only pickles and drinks only Pabst Blue Ribbon (which gives me fond memories of that little hole-in-the-wall bar in Boston we used to go to on pizza night with MASSPIRG). He has a radio show and sneaks around with a recording thing making notes to himself about everyone and has crazy hair and bug eyes and made an internet animation about the End of the World that is strangely reminiscent of its real-life counterpart except that it IS TOTALLY RIGHT! He tops off his awesome performance with a true crazy-man death, staring down the celestial Lindor truffle's big-rock candy mountain - I MEAN, the giant volcano that appears where Yellowstone once was.

The next thing you need to know about "2012" is that if you are a CGI-creator, this is THE movie to work on. I'm pretty sure the meeting about this went something like...

Guy in charge: Hey smelly computer dudes, we're going to need all kinds of disaster footage, so pick a place you've always wanted to destroy and tank it.
Computer dudes: SWEET
Guy in charge: Except for you Gary, you have to destroy Washington D.C.
Gary: But I did D.C. in "Independence Day" too!
Guy in charge: Just consider yourself lucky Bill Pullman isn't in this film. TO WAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!!! (Yep, he's Saruman at the end there)

I'm sure the guy who chose the Vatican had a bad Catholic school experience, just as I'm sure the guy who destroyed Las Vegas was disappointed in the quality of his legalized prostitution on his last visit. I'm just saying.

The last important lesson of "2012" is that all movies are more exciting with countdowns. Also, the more countdowns there are, the more exciting the movie is. The whole movie is a meta-countdown to the end of the world, and inside it are all these mini-countdowns. First, there's a countdown to shit starting to hit the fan. Then there's a countdown to a volcano explosion in Yellowstone. Then there's a countdown to when Washington D.C. gets destroyed. Then there's a countdown to the floods reaching the arks. THEN there's a countdown to getting one of the arks fixed before it hits Mount Everest. I was so stressed out at the end of this movie I thought I had a paper due.

And yes, you heard me right. My man of choice says it best. "You know a movie is ridiculous when the captain of a ship turns to the head of the United States and says 'Sir, we're heading straight for the north face of Mount Everest, and if we can't start the ship's engines, the ark will not survive the impact.'"

To sum up, this movie is a MUST SEE. Lots of things are destroyed, a tsunami goes over the Himalayas - my only complaint is it's a little LONG for a disaster movie. And let's just say, lots of the DIALOGUE could have been cut without much change in the quality of the film.

P.S. If I were going to crash into Mount Everest I would totally Twitter: "ZOMG YOU GUYS ICEBERG (I mean Mount Everest!) STRAIGHT AHEAD! DON'T LET GO JACK!"