The film explores the idea of a global doomsday event coinciding with the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar's current cycle on or around 2012 (the northern hemisphere's winter solstice).
Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) is a divorced father who occasionally works as a limousine driver and a writer, while his ex-wife (Amanda Peet) and children live together with her new boyfriend. In Guatemala reports start coming in of mass suicides in the Mayan jungles of people attempting to avoid the impending apocalypse. The IHC (Institute for Human Continuity), a secret organization, has realized the situation and begun constructing vast arks beneath the Himalayan mountains to save both the human race and significant animal species for when doomsday finally happens. There are arguments however about how and when the governments of the world will alert their fellow citizens and even discussions about how the remaining survivors will be selected to survive Armageddon.
When they discover that a global cataclysm caused by the Earth's crust displacement will occur faster than expected, they must race to these ships in order to save the human race before all is lost. Los Angeles is completely destroyed by massive earthquakes, the Yellowstone Supervolcano erupts, more massive earthquakes occur in South America which destroys the city of Rio de Janeiro. Washington, D.C. gets flooded by an enormous tidal wave which crushes the White House, and The Vatican in Rome crumbles into oblivion. As worldwide floodings get worse, the US government declares the end of the world.
A group of survivors, including Jackson Curtis and his family must fight their way to China before they can board the great arks and save themselves from the gigantic tidal waves sweeping across the Earth.
