CGI made boring

Rating: 1/10 (16 July 2010)

Well it's a disaster movie and you don't expect these to be actually good. You know who the bad guys and the good guys are going to be - you know there'll be a big speech making the cynical politician remember his humanity, you know the guy will get back with his ex-wife, you know her current husband (having shown himself a good guy after all) will die while the hero attempts vainly to save him. There was not a single scene in the movie which wasn't a tired clichÃ©.
I suppose all the "last-minute saves" are supposed to increase tension - but you know what? After 20 last minute saves, you just want the hero to die.
The science and engineering in the movie is so painfully stupid it hurts. It's fine to suspend disbelief at some point, but if you have to do that on a once-a-minute basis it just becomes tiring.
But there was lots of advanced CGI in the film - watching that should at least be entertaining, right? Well no, it's just the same stuff over and over again. The earthquake splitting the ground just behind the Hero's fleeing car for miles and miles and miles, followed by another earthquake splitting the ground just behind the hero's plane taking off. And then we follow that by a scene of the hero fleeing in a camper van, with the vulcano bombarding the ground just behind the car - for miles and miles. Then the hero has to outrun a starting plane - obviously with an earthquake swallowing the ground just behind him as he dashes along the runway. Climbing into the plane of course the ground is splitting just behind the plane as it takes off.
Are you bored yet? No - well that's great because we'll repeat that scene for a few more times before the movie is over. Same with the "ground swallows up people and buildings" and "sky scrapers toppling into the ocean" and "national landmarks falling over" scenes. Hey if it's impressive to watch once, you'll be impressed again if we show it another 15 times, right? In the end Emmerich didn't even spare us the scene where the (vapid looking but really has a heart of gold) Russian mistress off the rich tycoon looses her life trying to save her little dog.
He didn't even squash that annoying dog, not even the annoying little dog.