Drenched in exaggerated drama and clichés

Rating: 6/10 (21 December 2009)

If you combined Independence Day and The Day after Tomorrow, took out the cool one-liners and added the most amazing SFX you have ever seen, you would get something like this.
It has all the characteristics of a bad mainstream action movie. The plot, characters and dialogs are so predictable I found myself laughing during some supposedly dramatic scenes. Every time the protagonists make a close escape from the Cataclysm happening around them, it's in the last possible second. Every time the vehicle passes a potentially deathly obstacle, it's by a few centimeters. Such close escapes CAN create drama, but they are happening throughout the entire film, at every possible moment. At some point, you will get bored with the predictability. The whole movie is so full of clichés, part of it is actually painful to watch. While most of the actors are doing a solid job, they can't overcome the awful script.
The special effects, however, are what makes this movie worth watching. You can overlook the terrible stuff that usually makes up a good movie when you watch the destruction of a whole city, a huge wave rolling over the Himalaya or the eruption of what was once the Yellowstone National Park. These are truly the best SFX I've ever encountered in a movie, and they are the reason you should watch it regardless of its bad, well..., rest.