Nice special effects... where's the plot?

Rating: 3/10 (12 May 2011)

The first impression that I had of the movie before I saw it was that all of the money towards the movie was put into the special effects and that it didn't have a plot. I didn't think that I would really enjoy this movie. After watching it, I was mostly right.
The plot was more predictable than a sit-com. There were very cliché moments and aspects of the movie that I've seen in so many disaster movies before this one. In the extreme chasing scenes where the main characters are running / driving / flying away from disaster, the speed of the earthquake / dust cloud seemed to match the speed of the characters, slowing down when the characters stop for a moment.
The characters were under-developed and the dialog was childish. I didn't fell much emotion, either for the characters or the overall situation while watching this movie.
The thing that bothered me the most was that there wasn't any attempt to explain what was causing the entire planet to just unleash hell everywhere with super-volcanoes, earthquakes, and flooding. The only thing that was mentioned was something about the sun aligning in the center of the galaxy. What does that have to do with anything?? Movies like Day After Tomorrow, Twister, the Core, and even some B-movies would at least have some sort of logic into the explanation as to what was causing the chaos, even if it is the typical blaming of global warming.
However, I would be wrong to say that I didn't enjoy watching the movie; even if to satisfy the simple thrill of watching a super-disaster; just like riding a roller-coaster. After all, the special effects were phenomenal and visually realistic. Too bad the plot wasn't.