One of the laziest films I have ever seen

Rating: 2/10 (25 November 2009)

I always try to begin my film commentaries with something positive, so let's start here by saying the special effects are magnificent. Unfortunately, that should be a given these days, so it doesn't count for much in the movie's favor.
In every other respect, except financially, this movie is an abject failure. The story is basically a rerun of the same director's (much more entertaining) "The Day After Tomorrow", with another disaster, general environmental disintegration, replacing the new ice age of that earlier effort.
This might not matter too much if the story were well handled, peopled with engaging/plausible characters, or well acted, but it is none of those things. Instead, we have a number of cardboard cutouts going through the motions of interaction, using worldwide catastrophe as an opportunity to work out their personal issues by babbling the most jaded of clichés.
The most infuriating of these scenarios is between the trio of our "hero" Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), his estranged wife Kate (Amanda Peet) and her new man Gordon (Tom McCarthy). Jackson redeems himself in Kate's eyes with heroics of the kind towards which he has previously shown no inclination. Gordon is then conveniently killed off and, seemingly, completely forgotten within minutes. A pity really because at least McCarthy seemed to be making an effort. Cusack in particular barely seems to be awake much of the time and Peet is just plain dreadful.
The only actor who emerges more or less unscathed from this mess is Woody Harrelson. His comic turn as a kind of apocalyptic shock jock, killed while watching the Yellowstone caldera erupt as a giant volcano, breathes some much needed life into the early scenes.
I haven't mentioned the music, but it isn't really worth mentioning.
All in all, then, it looks like Roland Emmerich just called up the script for "The Day After Tomorrow" on his computer, changed a couple of the selections, then filmed whatever came out. The result is awful to contemplate.
Rating: 2/10.