Oh dear...

Rating: 1/10 (14 December 2009)

I went into this with very low expectations for obvious reasons. I don't ask much from my disaster movies, but can you please show me something new? Please? The bombardment of clichés is overwhelming. There has to be a checklist somewhere in a Hollywood vault that displays the requirements for any disaster movie. The main protagonist has to be a divorced or separated dad whose life is in disarray but who is redeemed by the end of the movie. The step-dad must be devoid of all personality lest we start caring when he is inevitably killed off so the main character can move in on his ex. Any antagonist in the movie (who is this guy supposed to be anyway, the Secretary of Defense? I don't think it ever says, but I easily could have missed it, as I started zoning out) MUST be white and secondary protagonists (the President of the United States, the geologist, the doctor from India, the Tibetan man who helps the main characters and the President's daughter) must be minorities. Murphy's Law must apply and everything that could go wrong, does. However, since we know everything will turn out fine at the end anyway, there is no tension whatsoever. Finally, there should have been a disclaimer at the beginning that read: "WARNING: In the following movie, product placements will attack your senses at every opportunity". I guess when your budget is a quarter of a million dollars, you'll take any money you can get. I get that this is a movie, but some plausibility would be nice. Is Jackson Curtis secretly Aquaman? The old world record for holding your breath was around 5 min. After his stunt, it's apparently up to 20.