It’s all right if the world ends, just as long as you get to see Diamond Head erupt.

At least that’s what the audience seemed to be saying at the Hawai‘i premiere of the new film, “2012.” The sight of O‘ahu as it would look if Madam Pele had her way with it midway through the film was met not with shock but with almost a standing ovation as the camera panned over the extra-crispy remains of O‘ahu under Diamond Head’s trademark silhouette.

Congratulations, Hawai‘i! We were important enough to be included in Director Roland Emmerich’s $260 million special effects budget!

As far as the plot goes, set your expectations low. “2012” is a textbook example of how to do a disaster movie, if only because Emmerich might as well have written the textbook himself. Thinly layered storylines of plucky and determined survivors provide enough plot to keep the dramatic explosions going. John Cusack and Chiwetel Ejiofor head the dueling storylines, but there are no real twists to speak of.

That’s forgivable – fans of the disaster genre don’t flock to theaters to see brilliant dialogue and compelling storytelling. They want to see stuff like Diamond Head blowing up.

O‘ahu’s most marketable mounain is in good company – Los Angeles, Yellowstone, India, Las Vegas and the White House are among the locations Emmerich hand-picked for annihilation in “2012.”

Emmerich also chooses a few locations of religious importance, though his symbolism is imbalanced. The statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro is shown toppling over, its arms crumbling off. Michelangelo’s painting of The Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is laboriously cracked just so, separating the Adam-half from the God-half of the painting. The pope and his cardinals are shown praying in St. Peter’s Basilica just as it collapses and its dome rolls over the gathered worshippers at the Vatican.

The president (Danny Glover) stays behind in the White House chapel and prays instead of getting on the plane that will take him to the waiting ships that are supposed to save the brightest and richest of humanity. He dies when an aircraft carrier carried by a tsunami crushes the White House.

Maybe Emmerich is suggesting – through his imagery, at least, if not through his actual statements – that organized religion isn’t going to save us when the world ends.

What is more telling than what Emmerich chose to destroy in his newest disaster blockbuster – and he is known for them, directing both 2004’s “The Day After Tomorrow” and 1996’s “Independence Day” – may be what he considered but chose not to destroy: the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site.

“I wanted to do that, I have to admit,” Emmerich said in an interview with the SyFy channel. “But my co-writer Harald said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right. ... We have to all ... in the Western world ... think about this. You can actually ... let ... Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with (an) Arab symbol, you would have ... a fatwa, and that sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is.”

Final verdict: Don’t see “2012” for the plot – go watch it to see what $260 million of special effects can buy. Expect the thinking to occur after the movie ends, but let your senses be taken on a ride while it lasts. Solid B.

Is 2012 really a doomsday year?

The film “2012” is loosely based on predictions stemming from the supposed end of the Mayan long-cycle calendar, said by some to end on Dec. 12, 2012. Conspiracy theories abound on the Internet as to what will happen on that date, ranging from the close passing of an unseen planet to the prediction of an increase in solar radiation to a shift in the Earth’s geomagnetic poles, but so far no scientific evidence has come forward to suggest that the world will end in three years.

“Expectations of a catastrophe bringing about the end of the world happen on a fairly regular basis,” noted Rambdas Lamb, UH Mānoa associate professor of religion. “Most of these are based on some form of ‘evidence’ that is claimed to be legitimate by believers. The consequences of some of these are relatively benign, although they often lead to great disappointment when the expected end does not occur.”

These doomsday beliefs can also have unfortunate consequences.

“Such expectations lead people to seek to hasten the situation, as can be seen in the case of the suicide of 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult in 1997,” Lamb said.

Such beliefs have also caused problems for NASA, whose astrobiologist David Morrison has fielded more than 1,000 inquiries from individuals concerned – both because of rumor Web sites made before the film’s production and because people are falling for Sony’s viral web marketing campaign for the film – that the world is really going to end.

“I’ve had three from young people saying they were contemplating committing suicide,” Morrison said in an interview with National Public Radio. “I’ve had two from women contemplating killing their children and themselves. I had one last week from a person who said, ‘I’m so scared; my only friend is my little dog. When should I put it to sleep so it won’t suffer?’ And I don’t know how to answer those questions.”

Lamb says to take any doomsday theories you hear with a grain of salt.

“To students or anyone else concerned about what might occur in 2012, I would simply quote from an old Jewish story about King Solomon, ‘... and this too shall pass.’ ”