Nowehere Near As Good As Expected...

Rating: 4/10 (25 March 2013)

My main problem with this movie was the fact that it was just so unbelievably unrealistic, full of clichés and seedy propaganda.
I found the scenes when the disaster strikes to be an insult to human intelligence. I mean, do you expect anyone to believe that, while the earth is destabilizing ALL AROUND AT THE SAME TIME, and we see hundreds of people and cars go to waste, the protagonist and his family have this magical ability to dodge every bullet, and they're the only ones in the whole city unaffected by the disaster and manage to get away safely while building are collapsing and the ground in moving? Right! How lame and unrealistic is that? It's so predictable and cheesy... there's no suspense whatsoever, and you are not simply bored, but also disgusted and offended.
I mean, the protagonist is a writer/limo driver, but he is portrayed as someone with almost superhuman powers. The ground is destabilizing under his feet, but he manages to save not only himself, but his whole family and the car + conveniently get to a plane and successfully board it while everyone else in the city dies.
And everything else about this movie is equally bad. Never ending clichés, bad dialogue, and disgustingly predictable action scenes. Of course, the US president has to be black. Of course, there is a dysfunctional/estranged family that will be brought together by the disaster. Of course, religious propaganda is involved. Of course, there are wealthy Russians and Arabs. Of course, there's a dumb blonde. Of course, the bad guy turns good in the end. Of course, you know right away who's going to live and who's going to die -- you even know when and in what order (yes, it's THAT predictable).
Honestly, it's just really boring a lot of the time. Like I said: zero suspense and zero originality.
Unconvincing, boring, lame = the three words that summarize it perfectly.
I thought that the President, as well as his adviser (the scientist) and his daughter were HORRIBLY miscast. None of these actors should've been in the movie. They're VERY unconvincing in their roles. Most actors in this movie are just really, really, really bad.
I hated the soundtrack, too.
I admire John Cusack; he's a splendid actor, but he couldn't save this disastrous mess. I think it's below his dignity to be associated with such a stupid excuse for a movie, so I have no idea why he agreed to star in it.
To add insult to injury, they brought in a Paris Hilton look-a-like (who plays a rich Russian dude's lover), and she gets a lot of screen time -- without actually serving any purpose (just like actual Paris Hilton). The movie seems to put a large emphasis on how important it is to save Paris Hilton and her purse rat. I'm not sure I understand what this is about.
I never really had high expectation for this film, but, turns out, it's worse than I thought. A huge disappointment.