History Film / TwoThousandTwelve

** Yellowstone National Park going up like a Fourth of July celebration on steroids. With the ground ''visibly rising'' first.

* {{Cool Boat}}s: [[spoiler:The Arkships]]. And the Antonov An-225 makes a pretty CoolPlane too.

-->'''Yuri:''' ''(smiling proudly)'' It's Russian. [[hottip:* :It's technically Ukranian. An-225 is a one-off (essentially a stretched An-124 ''Ruslan'') built to carry the Soviet Buran shuttle in mid-80'es. There's a lot of talks about series production (or completing the second airframe, which was never finished), but as Antonov design bureau lacks production facilities and must rely on Russian plants, which are still in a pretty bad shape, nothing has come of it as of now.]]

* RuleOfCool: Why do they take elephants and giraffes, which ultimately are useless, on the Arks instead of cows, chickens, etc. which they could use as livestock? Because it's more visually impressive to see elephants and giraffes get airlifted by helicopters than it is cows and chickens. It's as simple as that.

* GenreKiller: It's going to be hard to take a disaster movie seriously after this.

** Subverted and [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded] with the actual planetary meltdown, which jumps itself up by six months and causes all the precise survival plans to collapse.

* EarthShatteringKaboom: Not quite Earth-shattering, but the Yellowstone Caldera makes one hell of a kaboom.

* ActorAllusion: Woody Harrelson managed to [[Zombieland survive a zombie apocalypse and gorge out on a Twinkie.]] This time around, he's not as lucky.

* EarthShatteringKaboom: Subverted with the Yellowstone Caldera erupting, as it is not Earth-Shattering, but it makes one hell of a Kaboom when it goes off.

* EarthquakesCausesFissures: Good Lord, do they ever.

* ActorAllusion: John Cusack has [[BetterOffDead upgraded from speeding in a station wagon to driving like a madman in a limo.]] Turns out that [[{{Identity}} this is not his first time as a limo driver.]]
** Unlike the last [[{{Zombieland}} apocalypse he was stuck in]], Woody Harrelson did not make it out of this one.
** Both John Cusack and Amanda Peet were last seen stuck [[{{Identity}} at a deserted hotel with eight other people - one of which was a serial killer.]]

* HeyItsThatGuy: [[{{Zombieland}} Tallahasee]] warns [[BetterOffDead Lane Meyer]] that the end is nigh, so he picks up [[TheWholeNineYards his ex-wife Jill]], his kids and [[LittleFockers Dr. Bob]] and gets the hell out of L.A. [[LethalWeapon Roger Murtaugh]] is the President of the United States, [[{{Norbit}} Kate Thomas]] is his daughter, of which [[{{Serenity}} The Operative]] has the hots for.

* IgnoredExpert: Played straight for about ten seconds as Anheuser blows a frantic Adrian off, then subverted as he actually takes the young scientist seriously after flipping through his manuscript. To a lesser degree, Jackson. He buys into Charlie's theories after seeing Yuri's preparations for the Ark, and when trying to convince Kate, she does not believe him until California begins breaking up beneath her feet.

* OhCrap: Most of them surround Jackson.
** ...the aforementioned EurekaMoment.
** ...with his ex-wife, Gordon and their children upon seeing Los Angeles sink into the ocean.
** ...with Charlie Frost, just seconds before the Yellowstone Caldera go boom.
** ...upon finding out that the ships are in China.
--> '''Jackson:''' We're gonna need a bigger plane.
** Jackson, Sasha, Gordon and Karpov as they see [[AlohaHawaii Hawaii covered in lava.]]
--> '''Karpov:''' What is that?
--> '''Sasha:''' The State of Hawaii.
--> '''Karpov:''' [[OhCrap Not good. That is not good.]]
** Kate, Noah and Gordon just as the Yellowstone Caldera goes boom
** President Wilson, just seconds before the tidal wave (and the USS John F. Kennedy) broadside the White House.
** The surviving population of Las Vegas as the ash cloud approaches.

** [[Film/{{Zombieland}} Considering that he can survive a zombie apocalypse...]]

* ActorAllusion: John Cusack has [[BetterOffDead upgraded from a station wagon to a limo.]]

* HeyItsThatGuy: [[Zombieland Tallahasee]] warns [[BetterOffDead Lane Meyer]] that the end is nigh, so he picks up [[TheWholeNineYards his ex-wife Jill]], his kids and [[LittleFockers Dr. Bob]] and gets the hell out of L.A. [[LethalWeapon Roger Murtaugh]] is the President of the United States, [[Norbit Kate Thomas]] is his daughter, of which [[Serenity The Operative]] has the hots for. Oh, and he answers to [[ReadyToRumble Jimmy King,]] who is the President's right-hand man.

** And of course ''Earthquake''

* ActorAllusion: [[BetterOffDead John Cusack driving like a bat out of hell.]]

*** Not quite all of the [[spoiler:human race]]: the [[spoiler:Africans]], unfortunately, had no Ark to go to.

* TheJorEl: Played straight for about ten seconds as Anheuser blows a frantic Adrian off, then subverted as he actually takes the young scientist seriously after flipping through his manuscript. To a lesser degree, Jackson. He buys into Charlie's theories after seeing Yuri's preparations for the Ark, and when trying to convince Kate, she does not believe him until California begins breaking up beneath her feet.

* ShootTheShaggyDog: Probably one of the most blatant examples in film history. Gordon tries his best to be a good stepfather to Jackson's children, as well as getting on well with Jackson himself, and he manages to use his minimal flying experience to pretty much save the family on two separate occasions, as well as helping Sacha pilot Yuri's plane, and is never anything less than co-operative with the other characters. His reward for all of this? [[spoiler:To be brutally crushed to death in the Ark's hydraulic gears and promptly forgotten about]].
** [[spoiler:Although they ''were'' still trying to avoid the end of the world; they were probably prioritising on saving the living at the time.]]

* ContrivedCoincidence: The various ways in which Jackson and his family meet up with the other groups in the story.

* ChekovsGunman: Adrian's father is shown boarding a cruise ship early in the film, and he mentions that he has a son he stays in touch with. It isn't clear until later in the film that Adrian is his son.

** St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel in Rome, the latter complete with a crack opening up between Adam and God on the fresco ceiling.