| Movie DescriptionIn 2009, an American geologist named Adrian Helmsley learns that neutrinos from a massive solar flare are causing the temperature of the Earth's core to increase rapidly. Adrian informs White House Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser and United States President Thomas Wilson that this will trigger a catastrophic chain of natural disasters. In 2010, Wilson, along with other international leaders, begins a massive, secret project intended to ensure that humanity survives. Approximately 400,000 people are chosen to board ships called "arks" that are constructed at Cho Ming, Tibet in the Himalayas. Additional funding for the project is raised by selling tickets to the private sector for €1 billion per person. By 2011 they start to secretly move humanity's valuable treasures under the guise of protecting them from terrorist attacks to the Himalayas, so that their history can survive when the end comes.
In 2012, Jackson Curtis is a science-fiction writer in Los Angeles who works part-time as a limousine driver for Russian billionaire Yuri Karpov. Jackson's ex-wife Kate and their children Noah and Lily live with Kate's boyfriend, plastic surgeon and amateur pilot, Gordon Silberman. Jackson takes Noah and Lily camping in Yellowstone National Park, where they meet Charlie Frost, who hosts a radio show from the park. Charlie references a theory that suggests the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar predicts that the 2012 phenomenon is going to occur. He has a map of the ark project in addition to information of government officials and scientists from around the world who were murdered after discovering information about the ark project and trying to alert the general public. The family returns home as seismic activity vastly increases along the west coast. Jackson grows suspicious and rents a plane to rescue his family. He collects his family and Gordon as the Earth crust displacement begins, and they narrowly escape Los Angeles using a Cessna 340 as the city sinks into the Pacific Ocean.
As millions die in cataclysmic earthquakes worldwide, the group flies to Yellowstone to retrieve Charlie's map, escaping as the Yellowstone Caldera erupts. Charlie, who stayed behind to broadcast the eruption, is killed in the blast. Learning the arks are in China, the group lands in Las Vegas, where they meet Yuri, his twin sons, girlfriend Tamara and pilot Sasha. The group secures an Antonov 500 aircraft and departs for China. Also heading for the arks aboard Air Force One are Anheuser, Helmsley, and First Daughter Laura Wilson. President Wilson chooses to remain in Washington D.C. and is soon killed by a megatsunami which sends the USS John F. Kennedy crashing into the White House. With the Vice President also dead and the Speaker of House missing, Anheuser assumes de facto leadership of the United States of America, although not in the line of succession. |
