The disaster movie is one genre that doesn’t change much from film to film. Whether it’s an alien spacecraft, a giant creature, or worldwide climate change, there isn’t much to differentiate worldly destruction. Roland Emmerich has already proven his experience with these themes. As the director of ‘Independence Day,’ ‘Godzilla,’ and ‘The Day After Tomorrow,’ Emmerich has an eye for finding the world’s most cherished and recognizable historical monuments to destroy with special effects. While his latest film is no exception to the rule, ‘2012’ is merely a combination of the best and the worst of disaster films.

‘2012’ is loosely based on the belief that the Mayan calendar predicted the end of the world. According to the calendar, that fateful event is expected to occur on December 21, 2012. The film also features more mindless scientific talk about the planets aligning and the earth’s crust is shifting due to increasingly large sun-flares, but the true focus of the film is on the updated use of special effects in conjunction with the destined cataclysmic events. With the latest and greatest destruction footage ever created for film, ‘2012’ audiences might be expecting a non-stop thrill ride.

While it’s true that no audience should ever expect top notch acting and a winning script from a disaster film, they should at the very least find a suspenseful edge-of-your-seat thriller. Whether it’s a conveniently placed crack between the fingers of the Sistine Chapel, or a tight-rope walking dog, these cheap attempts at humor continually destroy the pace of this film. Thanks to many of these worthless gags, the film takes on a bloated runtime that extends just over two and a half hours.

This added time is poorly spent on the similar looking destruction footage from recent disaster films. ‘2012’ features trembling earthquakes, exploding volcanoes, capsizing boats, and much more. Since we can virtually create anything and travel anywhere possible through the use of special effects, there is no reason why we should continually experience more of the same. After the fourth time ‘2012’ recycles a scene of someone narrowly outrunning the slowest moving apocalypse in movie history, you might be wishing the end of the world had already come and gone.