formulaic disaster movie

Rating: 7/10 (25 August 2013)

This is a formulaic disaster movie. The "science" behind it is downright silly. Every time the movie attempts to introduce a bit of science or technobabble, the movie stops because it makes no sense.
The danger is often silly and the rescue too far fetched. For example 5 dozens blobs of molten lava miss the minivan by centimeters, yet nary a one hits.
The pluses for this movie include:
1. no scrimping on CGI. Everything gets destroyed, parks, religious monuments, political monuments, cities, ships, airplanes, luxury cars, underground factories,...
2. It has a large cast. Even the bit parts are played by big name actors.
3. The child actors are quite believable.
4. Some reasonably interesting philosophical discussions about competition under conditions of scarce resources.
5. They play with stereotypes, then gradually dismantle them.