Why Has Emerrich only made one good disaster movie?

Rating: 3/10 (31 July 2010)

The answer to that question is, that that movie (Independence Day) didn't take itself seriously. Everything he has done since has been much more straight faced and that has been there downfall. I know what your going to say, ID4 wasn't a parody. No it wasn't, but it made so many sly references to other films and TV series in a wonderful eye winking way, that it made it much more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been. Maybe that's the point here? Maybe Emmerich might have a better track record with comedy merged with gigantic special effects. Maybe he should have done that awful "Disaster Movie"? Granted. there was one part of the movie that seemed to gravitate towards that sly wink. That would be Woody Harrelson's over the top performance as the conspiracy radio talk jock covering the crisis while waiting for the Yellowstone caldera to erupt. Alas, it was far from enough to even make it entertaining. The special effects are well done, but all that does is make this a grand cliché.