Oversold with a TV Ending

Rating: 3/10 (14 November 2009)

Marketing WAY oversold this disaster flick, promising to deliver an "end-of the world" scenario and delivering a very lame ending. The movie starts out slower than I expected, with a lot of TV-level family 'drama' and "character development." The action does not begin until 30 minutes into the film, after trying to explain way too much! I had entered the theater with my disbelief suspended, and they spend overtime creating doubts. Everyone knows that the more 'facts' you throw at the audience, the more thinking that goes on instead of watching. It was like sitting through an engineering report before riding the Six Flags Riddler's Revenge. This was unnecessary and made the movie too long.
Once the real show started, the special effects were worthy of the best Disney rides. Things came apart nicely, and there was just enough detail to give you that "bodies flying out the windows" realism. The airplane perspective was understandable and not implausible enough to be a distraction. However, seeing LA, Las Vegas, and Yellowstone get bashed to bits was not enough. Other venues such as Hawaii were mere glowing glimpses (though the White House wipe-out was pretty good). There are too many "quiet moments" in-between that were like going to the bathroom between rounds of a fight. Finally, the ending started out pretty strong, if not a bit corny, then went "happily ever after" in the most ridiculous biblical way. It was a deal killer to have the engineering "part one" explain how the world was going to end in ways that Armageddon would envy, then get us to believe the deck-o-continents was shuffled and re-dealt in less time than it takes to get through the NBA playoffs.
Good bits were (1) China saves the day (2) Woody Harrelson goes out in great style (3) there is no mention of terrorists or global warming.
Acting is OK. John Cusak gives a journeyman performance that was everything you might expect for a disaster film. However, he was on screen much too long, as were many others. Amanda Peet was acceptable as the ex-wife but offered no value-add. Danny Glover looked shell shocked as the President but did not linger long enough to make it a problem. Thandie Newton was passable as the President's daughter but lacked the charm of her other works such as the Chronicles of Riddick. Oliver Platt was OK as the cold bureaucrat but nowhere up to his West Wing performances. And Chiwetel Ejiofor was passable as the "do-gooder PhD that cannot figure out the obvious until it is too late but still gets the girl" guy.
Bottom line, get into the moving 20 minutes late, plan for a popcorn break after Vegas goes, and leave just after the waters crash over Tibet. Or wait will the DVD comes and skip those parts.
Oh, the sound mixing was excellent. Post production made everything seamless with the minor exception of the backdrop of Cusak and Harrelson as Yellowstone went up (those flares were a tiny bit off). No sex, little blood (a few wounds), fleeting expletives were few and hard to catch, and no political statements.