Disaster movie maven Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) crafts this apocalyptic sci-fi thriller following an academic researcher who opens a portal into a parallel universe, making contact with his double in an effort to prevent the catastrophic prophecies of the ancient Mayan calendar from coming to pass. According to the Mayan calendar, the world will come to an end on December 21, 2012. When a global cataclysm thrusts the world into chaos, divorced writer and father Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) uses his knowledge of the ancient prophecies to ensure that the human race is not completely wiped out. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Glover, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, and Oliver Platt round out the cast of this end-of-the-world thriller co-scripted by the director and his 10,000 B.C. writer/composer, Harald Kloser. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide