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The Destruction of Los Angeles | 2012
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- Published on Jul 18, 2025
- As Los Angeles crumbles around them, Jackson (John Cusack) and his family make a daring attempt to escape the city by plane… | Buy or rent 2012 here: amzo.in/movie/...
Dr. Adrian Helmsley, part of a worldwide geophysical team investigating the effect on the earth of radiation from unprecedented solar storms, learns that the earth's core is heating up. He warns U.S. President Thomas Wilson that the crust of the earth is becoming unstable and that without proper preparations for saving a fraction of the world's population, the entire race is doomed. Meanwhile, writer Jackson Curtis stumbles on the same information. While the world's leaders race to build "arks" to escape the impending cataclysm, Curtis struggles to find a way to save his family. Meanwhile, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes of unprecedented strength wreak havoc around the world.
© Sony Pictures
The amount of main character energy is needed to survive all that is crazy
A classic movie forsure
watching this back nowadays makes it feel silly but the first time seeing this movie had me in disbelief 😅😂
"Mommy, why was that plane flying so low?"
"Oh sweetie, those are the main characters, we're going to die but hey, they get to live"
@@SIMIFUlol
A classic??? This movie sucked and was literally based on the idea of the world ending in 2012… which it didn’t….
@@wesgebauer7099Can you back that up with evidence?
The amount of destruction, and people falling to their death screaming in agony, this scene is both spectacular and horrifying.
I shall make up the word“specterrifying”.
@@robertnelson9599 death defying
Really? I'm laughing at it all 😂 It's so corny lol
It made me slightly hungry.
Same for a hot dog@@PauloAdriano-zo2ng
This movie SCREWED me up when I saw it in theaters. I was honestly in tears, thinking about some cataclysmic event happening and not being able to save my family.
SAME! Scared the piss out of me, couldn't focus on my exams after I saw this.
I was convinced London was gonna be swallowed by the sea!
poor family!
Was this
Ment to be a comedy, it's really stupid if not
I watched this when I was 6, i cried for 3 days.
@@jameshaywood878 If you're going to come after someone for their comment, maybe make sure you didn't make stupid mistakes. It's *meant, not ment.
When we said we were waiting for a California housing market crash, this isn't quite what we meant.
😂 the greatest comment ever
No, no, it is.
A crater where a house stood would still be $1,000,000
I fucking love the comment section 😂😂😂
It is
I watched this movie again with my 6yo daughter, it was her first time watching it, when this first destruction scene came up, she asked, "Pa, how did you survive all this?" 😅
Oh my god, you shouldn't watch that with a 6 year old 😑
@@Fruechtchenboo hoo lil bro 🤡
Kids are brutal. My niece asked my sister what were the 60s like, and if she met MLK! My sister is 40 btw 🤣
bruv what you think this is? evil dead?
Tell all this are come if human do selfinesss things with out careing of nature it's not a laughing waste fellow 😐
The people on the highways and on the roads falling to their deaths hits really hard. Usually as audience members we feel empathy, but the characters are always probably thinking, “so glad I ain’t them.”
There was literally no reason for that guy to be flying THAT low for THAT long. Absolute psychopath
ikr? like "now that we're in the air let's take a guided tour of LA as it slowly slides off into the ocean along with the rest of the entire Pacific plate" LOL! 🤣
Thing is, if you look carefully, you realize... the plane never actually took off
He was flying too slow to take off; the ground itself sunk
@@theonebman7581yeah
until you realize that the plane never gained enough speed to take off and just gilded through the underground, and only then did they get speed afterwards to fly higher
one of the slightly more accurate things about this disaster movie
The falling ground below them likely would have caused an insane downdraft and made it very difficult for the lift produced by the plane to counteract
Cannot believe how bad the Scwarzenegger impression is 😂
Except it’s actually him.
@@kellygarland63no its not😂🤣
The voice and looks aren’t even close 😂
What the heck is Scwarzenegger?
@@meredithmayeux3731he was the governor of California during this time period irl. He also played famous roles in movies like Terminator
The fact the world actually believed that this was happening in 2012 is insanity to think back on lol
Oh it'll happen just wait....... California is believed to sink into the ocean as the plates shift, that part is a true theory.....
Yeah, it makes sense, considering the hundreds of disaster in 2011.
What are you talking about? I don't know if you remember people thought everything was going to end in 2000 during the Y2K panic.
Man, imagine a few kids that are born in 2012 sees this?
@@iamarizonaball2642fr Japan earthquake and tsunami the ton’s of EF5 and EF4 tornado’s in America that caused catastrophic damage it was a crazy year
“Take the La Freeway, it’ll be half the time”. I always laugh at this part because I’ve never been to LA but ik enough about it that u should never take the freeway if you’re trying to get somewhere quick, especially in a chaotic situation like this 😭
Former L.A. resident and can confirm everything you know about the freeway system is painfully true 😅
I was going to say the most unrealistic thing about this entire movie was someone who lives in LA saying to take the highway, it would be faster 😂
@@kirbystarnino4199 EXACTLY 🤣
I feel like while it's a decent idea *normally* because freeway = faster than residential roads... Two problems with that plan.
1) It's the most extreme earthquake that the world has ever seen, so most tall structures, including highways, will collapse.
2) Even if the highway *somehow* stays intact, chances are, many other people would have had the same idea which clogs up the highway with the sheer amount of people, or because someone panicked and crashed into the divider, creating a pileup.
@@shibainu2528true so its kinda mid
The plot armour in this movie is insane
They had so much luck throughout the movie that it's even more unrealistic than the actual end of the world.
I normally really *really* hate a lot of these things the movie has but God damn it was it so badass in doing them. Seeing today's ass movies having a minimum fraction of this movies stuff really makes me appreciate the stuff here
It was essentially a plot force field
bruh all main characters have plot armor plus its a MOVIE, what would be interesting about a movie if the main characters die early 🤦🏿
@spiderfan456 mcu movie is your best example. Lots of main characters dead
0 points for realism, 100 points for entertainment
Thats the Reason I watch this all the time.
Bruh I gotta have at least 30% realistic points before I can be entertained, I just get frustrated by the conflict points that don't need to happen 😂 just show me the destruction and the escape with some sense!
3:35 give that running guy an Oscar 😂😂
7:27 I love that John Cusack is screaming in terror like he wasn't just doing the same shit or worse to the other people in his limo 5 minutes ago.
Underrated scene. This movie gets weird at the end but the first two hours is solid af
It's only weird because they said only Africa exists as a land mass.
Curious what about the ending is weird for you
The last half kinda sucks when it comes to action ngl
@@ronj7658 Maybe the part where they treat the ending as humanity being decent despite the fact that all the people they had mercy on and let onto the arks were uber rich people. They treat it as if they had just saved the common people who allowed the rich to get so wealthy. Nope all of us normies died after making the uber rich the money they needed to be saved, but this is supposed to be humanities moment of beauty. It was also given religious undertones, even though it isn't the rich that are supposed to be saved in the end if you go by the bible. Not only that but they treat Africa as the promised land, however every African on Africa would have been dead due to the landmass raising thousands of feet in elevation in only a few days. So basically if you go by the religious interpretation then that would mean god killed all of africa to give the land to the western world after the apocalypse which has weird racial messaging as it is. No matter what though, all of Africa died so that (mostly white people) could take the land, and nobody seems sad about the rest of humanity dying.
@@neffdigitydogbecause it's a new beginning all those old emotions and concepts of racism and being divided are no more.......the idea of the ending is that humanity can survive and build a better future together.....save your racist rant for somewhere else..
The best scene in the entire movie. The Death and Destruction in this scene alone is pretty damn insane and the special effects hold up pretty well for a movie that came out 15 years ago. I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be to experience a scenario like this only to die a horrifying death with the ground disappearing beneath your feet, at that point it would be pointless to be scared anymore and to just accept your fate as you fall into what looks like a bottomless pit
turn to Christ❤
@@5starrsamamen
@@5starrsamma'am this is wendy's
The worst part about it is the fact la had no traffic
Such a movie doesn't deserve an analysis like yours
1:30 Never say the worst is over. It only means the worst is just getting started.
Cliche, right?
I always thought he said the world was over and it made sense because it was
Say what you will about this movie, the destruction scenes are some of the best Emmerich ever directed, and it’s legitimately scary to see the city fall apart around the characters.
Absolutely. All the destruction scenes in this movie, I can watch time and time again and it still leaves an impact on me. And I have seen this movie multiple times already, and it still holds up well!
@@jordantolkar2586The physics range from questionable to complete nonsense, but the visuals and choreography are top-notch. Up there with Davy Jones and the Titanic sinking for CGI that’s aged well.
The destruction alone in this movie makes it his best disaster movie out of everything he's made in my opinion. Because of how the characters react as it's happening, and the visuals. Seeing his kids just scream in terror cemented this movie for me
The most unbelievable chase scenes ever made
Straight facts
😊
Especially when those two old women would not have crashed with how slow they were going
@PauloHernandezXDWell, signal-wise, Yellowstone isn’t really that far from L.A, he probably could’ve just barely received it.
Oh cmon. Compared to a Fast and Furious film this is as realistic as it gets! 😂
New Yorkers' description of the April 5 2024 "earthquake"
A 4.8 in an area that doesn’t get a lot of earthquakes feels like a big deal.
Baby @@PDC1987
😂😂
@thenicobossy which has absolutely nothing to do with how it feels for people who do not normally experience earthquakes.
Bunch of cry babies
Jackson (the main character) actually orchestrated everything in this movie so that his ex-wife's boyfriend dies so that he can bond with her again
They did the boyfriend so dirty lol
🤓☝️
I never trusted Jackson.
Damn know that's just wrong
He even dumped his car 😂
Despite how so-so the movie is overall these are simply some of the coolest special effects I've ever seen in a theatre.
that final part of the scene where the whole plate is sliding off into the ocean was both epic and horrifying 😮
I dont know hiw thats possible, wasnt it a 10.9 magnitude earthquake as it broke scales
8:36
This scene is a childhood classic for me, it’s also so well done too for a 2009 film
Technology wasn't thag arcaic in 2009
@@hectordiaz1575wdym they had just discovered gravity on 2009?
Kid, there are literally hundreds of great special effects-driven movies that came out long before 2012.
Transformers.. 😂
Knowing is better
Whoever did that Schwarzenegger impression absolutely butchered it 😂😂
where
i didnt know Schwarzenegger could do a bad Schwarzenegger impression....
@@dani1999n That wasn't Schwarzenegger it was an actor doing an impression of him. Don't believe me look at the end credits. Do you see his name in there at all?
@@hhds113didn't knew it was an actor, its impressive
@@dani1999nthe guys an actor he's reading a script! 1:13
“Seems to me the worst is over”
The earth casually tearing itself apart.
5:48 the entire Los Angeles ground is about to collapse by the force of the earthquake
I mean considering just about all of California is built on land that's technically not part of the continental plate it's not that surprising.
Moments later, the San Andreas fault moves and creates a chain reaction on the Ring of Fire. A lot predicted this to happen in 2012 even though this film came out in 2009
as Dr. Phlox (LOL sorry couldn't resist....the guy playing one of the scientists is the same actor 😛 ) stated "The entire Pacific plate is destabilizing"....so yeah that's pretty much the whole plate sliding off into the ocean at that point
I'm crying with laughter watching this, the level of destruction combined with the plot armour is just too good
Yeah. It's too much. If it were realistic I'd be emotionally invested but this is so ridiculous it's funny. 😂😂😂
Little girl saying “my house!” Like she pays the mortgage 😭🤡😂
Lily Curtis said, "My Hats!", not "My House!" because she likes her Hats, similarly to Tamara, which we see later in the Movie.
This scene is the most sensationally terrifying thing I’ve ever watched
this scene is even crazier when you realize that some people might have survived the earthquake and were probably looting after Los Angeles fell
What looting? It all went underwater.
@SCP_Wandsman13_13 Fine, they went scuba diving for cash or jewelry. 😂
Even if they survived the earthquake, tsunamis followed, and after that Yellowstone erupted, Remember the scene where Vegas gets destroyed by the ashcloud? Vegas is not that far from LA
assuming parts of it did not completely get submerged in water or eaten by the yellowstone ash what else are you supposed to do lol
Obviously looting is bad. But what else is there to do in a shtf scenario like this. Nobody is going to survive. If you have a way to try, then take your best chance and good luck to you. It hardly counts as stealing at that point.
It’s unrealistic as fuck that the protagonists survived this, but damn it makes for a good, mind numbing action film
Protagonist never dies 🗿 👍
RIP to all of the cats and dogs who lost their lives during this.
Uh, what about the people???
@@SvanTowerMan I couldn't care less about them...
@@JustChill_1031 Fair. They're Californians.
@@SvanTowerMan You get it! 👍
:l
The scene would be more intense & terrifying if they took out the comedy elements
This whole scene is ridiculous comedy.
Everything about this scene is ridiculous.
Imagine Parody in This Is The End
Undoubtedly the best scene of the movie
1:43 That combination of car alarms has been forever ingrained in my head as a siren indicating the end of times
2:54 Imagine driving to work and seeing that behind you.
😂
BACK IN MY DAY
6:45 the world after you make a mistake
Made more than ten years ago, and that scene still kicks ass harder than any other disaster movie made today. I can't get enough of that scene! I don't care if you spot CGI and compositing left and right, it works! It WORKS!
I like the little detail that after Arnold says that the worst is over and the earthquake happens it happens on the tv too
That's not him
@@HuntleyKunce the character or the actor? I mean who else talks like that and Kate even referred to him as the governor which Arnold was
@@axelnilsson5124 it was an actor doing an impersonation of Schwarzenegger. The real Schwarzenegger stopped being governor in 2011 in the real 2012 it wouldn't have been him anyway.
@@HuntleyKuncebut it is Schwarzenegger in-universe so what I said still stands unless there is a limit to how long California has a governor like with the president which I don’t know about
8:36 Oh no, there goes Homer Simpson's Doughnut on the loose.
Its sad seeing the police and fire department still attempt to help people even tho they know they are going to die
nah it’s the opposite it should inspire you to see people helping others no matter the situation
That's true but unfortunately it's part of the job | *V*
How does he look like Nick Cage, Kevin Spacey, and Robert Downey Journey all in one? 🤣🤣
>Robert Downey Journey
*Junior, and Jackson or Gordon? 🤔
Bro my cousin showed me this clip a few years ago and I started crying thinking it was in real life😭
one of the best destruction scene in a movie....simply amazing
My boss: you’re still coming into work tomorrow right?
Amazing how cars can still work after getting that kind of damage in action movies, but in horror movies, cars will stop working just because the Sun set
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I think the reason why the plane had trouble getting higher off the ground is due to physics. The ground sinking like that must’ve caused air to rush downward all at once, and with great force and speed. This would’ve made it very difficult for the pilot to get any sort of altitude for a while. Everyone on board that plane was extremely lucky the pilot was able to get the plane up into the sky and away from the city. One wrong move, and the plane, plus everyone on board, would’ve been destroyed in an instant.
Think of rapture for church pilot as Jesus Christ
Also, because they only went 80 knots before liftoff instead of 85. I'm presuming that had an impact.
I feel bad for those grandmas 3:05
7:05 I’d be hugging my family in that scene
This is the best scene of the entire movie. It is epic, scary, and terrifying
2009 - earthquake
2025 - wildfire 😢😢
I was about to comment the same thing. 😝
America lost their faith in God
When cgi truly reached peak
For the destruction of Los Angeles, I'm sure Scrat has something to do with it.
if this were happening around Christmas time I'd joke that the fruitcakes probably survived all that.....including the pressures at the bottom of the ocean LOL 😛
6:02 "Let him cook!!!"
10 seconds later
"WE ARE COOKED!!!!"
At 0:38 I just now noticed the Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation 😂
"When they tell you not to panic THAT'S WHEN YOU RUN"
Words i live by
and never trust that square box called "TV"
This aged well…
Who’s here in 2040 when this went down In 2032 20 years off when we thought it would happen in 2012 and now we’ve rebuilt the world
I remember that but tbh it was kinda cool going to mars for the first time
You guys went to mars during that? Our company made us go back in time to get several important people out of the areas of destruction.
@@kevinjockey12 dang thats rough
Lol
7:12 the subway says hello
Hi? Nah bye
At 6:27 in this clip, Gordon takes off from Santa Monica airport and flies north-east, seemingly in a straight line. Yet, somehow, a few seconds later he is precariously flying the plane in what looks like Downtown Los Angeles, which is ten miles east of Santa Monica airport. At 7:20, Gordon pulls up and out of the giant pit forming through the city, heading towards the front of the Hotel Figueroa, which raises even more questions. The front of the hotel faces a little to the south-west and doesn’t at all face anywhere near the direction the end of the Santa Monica airstrip ends. This means that Gordan somehow flew north-east in a straight-line and somehow ended up south-west of Downtown LA, all in under a minute. Another thing to add is that the placements of the skyscrapers are different than in real life, proving this is some alternate timeline, as behind and around Hotel Figueroa the buildings are completely different than real life, with the only exception being the US bank tower. Now, the tower itself is also a strange case because in real life the US bank tower is over half a mile away from Hotel Figueroa while in the movie it’s only a few blocks away. After the close call of flying between the collapsing office towers, Gordon flies north-east again, heading out of the city. After a short conversation between our characters, at 8:35 we are shown Gordan flying the plane north over Santa Monica Pier as Los Angeles falls into the ocean, meaning this motherfucker flew fourteen miles in forty-five seconds all while coming from another direction. Are we, the viewer, supposed to believe that Gordan is somehow flying a magical teleporting plane through the city? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for these blunders.
I can't tell if that last sentence is a joke, but feel free to r/wooosh me if it was, but it's a movie. And how do you know all of this? 🤔
How are these blunders? This scene was so much better because they did it this way
CinemaSins be like:
I always appreciate people who put research into these things but you realize they had to fly over the Eiffel tower in Las Vegas right?
Is it your first time seeing a movie?
"My hats!" Kid, you've got a Hell of a lot more to worry about than your damn hats.
1:35 earthquake starts to beigen
Incredible CGI. Breathtaking. Destruction. It looks so real it gives chills watching it! This movie was mind blowing perfection !!! ❤
8:40 POV: Chapter 4 Fortnite Map
I watched this with my mom once it came out…
I remember being in school and everyone talking about how the world would end in 2012, it was always a trend until then.
5:12
Ok...umm...HOW!?!?
They are at an airstrip. Did he fall from a truck...and why was he on said truck?
What makes this scary is that THIS can happen at ANY MOMENT.
We would know beforehand. This movie is WILDY inaccurate, but it's still super entertaining.
@@bakedbeans198 Its not WILDLY inaccurate. Take a look at the displacement theory,. Its REAL thing.
@bakedbeans198 I 100% agree. San Andres' fault is a slip-strike fault, which means the plates slide alongside each other. Therefore, it would be pretty unlikely for the earth's crust to cave in under this specific fault line.
However, if it were a divergent fault line, this could happen, I guess. Divergent fault lines slide away from each other.
It can not, the pacific plate slides eastwards underneath the north american plate. California slipping into the ocean or becoming an island as so many films portray will never happen. You might get a mountain taller than everest in the Sierra Nevada though.
Seeing the ground move like its almost a liquid in this movie and seeing irl footage of major earquakes, its awesome they were able to make it look so well
RIP to all those we lost in the 2012 cataclysms........
“GET… in the FUCKIN CAR!!!!!!!!!!!” 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
4:40 Michael Jackson?
LOL WHY DOES IT ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE HIM😂
Real
And do you want that’s when he died 2009 That when the movie came out And when he died rip
7:11 scary scene 😮
I love how I instantly knew it would be the subway one
7:15😮
I know it's beyond unrealistic, but i still love this whole part of the movie. That is some legendary driving and the fact it's a disaster movie just makes that even cooler to me.
1:04 Going Down😂
1:34 The TV guy: The worst is over
Earth: Gets worse by so much more 💀
"Get in the fucking car now!!!!! Move your ass!!!"
That part always gets me.
One of my favorite movies of all time.
I have developed a habit of watching mega natural destruction scenes before doing a big assignment, it gives me a sense if urgency xd😂
2:57 Shout out to that disciple of Goggins.
Jackson: reverses into Gordon's Porsche
Gordon: 🤬
Jackso: Sorry😅
Can we talk about the Schwarzenegger impression though 🤣🤣🤣
Old mate took them on the scenic route from the airport.
😂😂
Right there immediately after YT algo showed me this after LA wildfire broke out. This is literally wild.
I watched this movie when I was 9😢 it was so good time flyes
who asked
@@cinna_to4st_waff1esi did
@@cinna_to4st_waff1esi bet bro watched this film in 2024
I cant help but think of all of the poor animals, critters, and pets that had to suffer but its only a movie yet i still cant shake the feeling
I was 12 while watching this movie and what scared me was the fact that at some point this could actually happen in life, and we wouldn't know when it would happen. And there's no way you would survive all that
I was 5 when it was release
yeah both this and then the Yellowstone caldera going up later in the movie are things that could actually happen 😕
Idk why, but the guy at 3:36 running through the street as that donut is rolling reminds me of Ellis from L4D2 for some reason. XD
This was the final boss of disaster films
Agreed! Kudos to your PFP
I was laughing, he was warning them and they acted like it was a joke 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The entirety of Hollywood was destroyed today. Nothing of value was lost.
Nothing of value was lost? Almost every valuable thing was lost! The canyon took everything into it!
@@heisgonenowheisgonenow California as a whole is a piece of shit. So no. Nothing of value was lost.
@@heisgonenowheisgonenow I guess you didn't get the point. Because Hollywood is worthless now and made up of woke idiots nothing is lost if Hollywood was destroyed.
Atleast better movies will be made
All the PDF files have died. Oh no. Anyways…
2:00 i made laugh that one
“GET IN THE FUCKING CAR LET’S GO LET’S GO” bro sweared in front of the kids wtf?
@Ambushisthebestngl He had to
The fact that they didn’t show the Hollywood sign in this…. 😕😕😕
:[[[
They did if you watch it closely
@@JenoahWhite-w5pTimestamp?
This gave me nightmares when I watched this as a kid
Caseoh: “Aight chat, ima do 5 jumping jacks, yall ready?”
“”My family’s gonna die” oh shut up 🙄”
“Y’all can handle 5”
*does them*
(this entire scene later)
Caseoh: “Y’all good?”
this aged pretty bad
@@blxd3215fr
8:41 spectacular af ! Scary, crazy, horrifying but super spectacular all at once
Am I the only one rewatching, just specifically looking for the NPCs? 😂
me too now ; D
Yeah i feel bad for those grandmas
The visuals of this movie are amazing I personally think it's a great movie
2:00 was funny as hell 😂😂
I watched this at .25 speed and flicked frame-by-frame at a few parts. Some things I noticed that I didn't/couldn't on a normal watch-through:
3:33- The donut's first visible victim is a cop car just as the wiper clears the right side of the windshield.
3:52- A man on the left has just enough time to notice the cement truck and turn before the explosion sends his car (and him) into the gas pump.
4:06- As the sidewalk breaks away near the bottom of the screen, it trips up two different people who were running on it. Also, on the collapsing roadway on the right, a van catches sick air and a man is run over by what may be his own truck.
4:35- A person running is briefly visible through the hole in the ceiling, even getting backlit by a sudden fire.
6:12- Due to what I assume were either budgetary or technical limitations, not a single small aircraft is visibly damaged in this scene.
6:35- On the collapsing road they fly by, a parked car is suddenly flipped before tumbling over the edge.
7:02- When the explosion occurs on the right of the screen, a pedestrian visible just under the plane is knocked over by the blast.
7:08- A man is attempting to either pry open the bus's side door or use it as a handhold. Whichever it was, he loses his grip when the door opens slightly.
7:16- The subway does not strike one of the refinery's vats, instead hitting a parked tanker trunk.
7:31- In the lower left is a man wearing a red t-shirt and what appear to be shorts. He and the two hanging on center-screen appear to be the only people visible in the building. These are also the last people we see in LA at all.
7:45- One of the cars on the crumbling island of freeway center-bottom has its alarm going off. This is also the last scene in LA with visible cars.