Completely predictable, sadly lacking, and fatally flawed.. (some SPOILERS)

Rating: 3/10 (2 June 2004)

Well for me this film wasn't one I was looking forward to, initially when I saw the adverts I thought I wanted to see it, but after reading some blurb about it I was concerned that it was going to turn into the usual Hollywood 'adventure' drivel...Sadly my thoughts came true.
I thought the movie started well, all the science seemed to be dealt with in a good and sensible fashion, and you do feel a sense of impending doom. The early disaster effects are typically top notch, although I felt a huge chunk of ice falling on someone's head would have made them bleed! And strangely for a Hollywood movie they didn't depict their administration as being infallible, which made me think maybe I was wrong to prejudge the film.
Sadly, things then deteriorate into the typical Hollywood fare. The hero does everything you'd expect, in the way you'd expect. The good old stiff upper lipped Brits perform their background tasks and do the usual (i.e. Die in a research bunker that turns out to have less stocks of the essentials than a New York library (where can I buy a vending machine that provides sustenance for 6 or 7 people and a dog for a week or more?)).
When the 'hero' becomes all heroic the major mistakes become evident. We've all touched something ice cold and had our skin stick to it, so surely someone holding onto to frozen metal with blood oozing out of their hands would suffer a similar fate (especially considering how cold it's alleged to be!). They also seem quick to remove their facial protection, without a care in the World.
The other thing that makes you go uhmmm is that the temperature at one point is supposedly dropping at a rate of -10 degrees every SECOND, yet it clearly takes the hero, and his son and friends for that matter, well over 10 seconds to get to safety. This despite earlier in the film someone in similar circumstances freezing on the spot in less than 3 seconds! (oh and it was also cold enough to freeze aviation fuel, but obviously American film stars have more in their veins than everyone else!? )
The temperature drops so fast that all the windows shatter, uhmm except of course on the building where the stars are! (either that or their room would have literally been snowed under, like the rest of New York!). Added to the fact that their chimney seems to work despite being blocked by snow and ice, surely if they hadn't frozen to death due to having no windows, they'd have choked to death on the smoke flooding their room since it had nowhere to escape to (this can be seen near the end because the hero can't even tell that he's reached his destination, and you certainly can't see any smoke coming from where the chimney should be!).
Oh and to cap it all, once the hero finds his son (bet you never thought he'd do it..YAWN!) the sun miraculously appears, as do hundreds of survivors! (can anyone tell me how they'd survived in skyscrapers that had no windows, and had been ravaged by tsunamis earlier int he film!??!)
All in all I found myself wishing that it had been an English film, for then some reality may have been preserved.
Sadly this film completely loses the plot half way through and all credibility goes out of the window.