I finally saw 2012 on pay-per-view last week only because my wife was on call at the hospital that night and there was nothing on TV. My overall impression is it wasn’t a complete waste of 2 1/2 hours, but I’m glad I didn’t spend $10 to see it in a movie theater.

The first half-hour had me hooked. The main characters were were well drawn, though I think it was the quality of the actors portraying them. And the science behind the end of the world was plausible — as sci-fi stories go — for me to suspend disbelief enough to accept the coming apocalypse (although if you’re worried about the movie scenario, let real science calm your nerves).

But then the world ended, and that’s where things got silly. The main characters could only have so many earthquakes, lava, and crevasses literally chase them before the entire movie started to feel like a deus ex machina in reverse. And where were all the iPads? I mean, come on!

There’s no denying the special effects were spectacular, and that is what saved the movie for me. Yes, I like “disaster porn” — guilty as charged — because it brings me back to the disaster epics I loved to watch as a kid on Sunday afternoons (Crack in the World, When Worlds Collide, etc.).

And that’s pretty much the category I’d place 2012 — save it for a rainy Sunday afternoon. Or a night your spouse is working.