damn good effects, story decent, falls short in ending

Rating: Null/10 (19 September 2004)

as far as disaster movies go, this is a decent film.
first off, the effects are great and worth a view alone, gotta love cgi and the amazing images we get these days. this may not be considered fine art by any means, but "wow" comes to mind. next is acting, nothing of golden globe or Oscar caliber, but you don't ever feel like your watching actors playing a role if you know what i mean. there have been comments of lower caliber actors, but if bruce willis or some other big shot was the lead, i think it would take you out of the story. story wise, it seems quite plausible even if it is rather fantastic and don't forget this is a movie after all. i will make notes as i watch this film and give specific details, good and bad...
*spoilers ahead* how does a film maker tell the story of a global disaster and keep it on a very personal level, of course you follow a few lead characters in the struggle dealing with the catastrophe. so let's get into some details and what i feel was good or could have been done better.
there's a nice intro to what's going on with the earth and why this global disaster is happening, these are issues we can all identify such as global warning. the scientific details are kept to a level we can all understand.
starting with India at a scientific conference, it is snowing and gives us a little hint at what's coming. next we move onto japan into a baseball sized hail storm. it is a relatively short scene and does not feel real. next we get some details and establishment on our lead characters. nothing too exciting and i feel pulls us away from the catastrophe waiting to happen. we slowly get brought back in with small signs such as animals freaking out , flocks of birds escaping south, and few other scientific things.
watching los angeles getting destroyed by tornadoes left and right is awesome! the only part that seemed completely contrived was watching the Hollywood sign getting obliterated, guess that's l.a. for you (that's why i left the place). let's move on, we go back to our lead characters and there struggles as things get more intense. there is of course the antagonist in the form of the vice president, who refuses to believe in the oncoming disaster. our scientists give us a countdown of the impending doom. we also get a description of what the monster, hurricane-like storms will do and that is freeze anything instantly and i mean anything.
onto mayhem in new york. it's been raining for days and the streets are flooding. the city has come to a complete standstill. as the statue of liberty is up to her neck in a tidal wave, we know the impending doom of new york. our hero's narrowly escape to the new york public library. these scenes are again fantastic and very well done. if there's anything that bothers me, it's the inter cutting of lead characters and the disaster. i want to watch the whole thing as if i'm reading this in a history book, not seeing the characters jumping over cars to get into the library, because i already know they're gonna make it.
now we are at the part of most disaster movies i hate, everything comes to a stand still. kinda like being in the eye of the storm, to coin a phrase. our characters are coming to terms with the situation, being inside a new ice age. of course, our scientist hero who has figured out what's going with the world, now has to go save his son stuck in new york. all of the sudden it feels like everything has come to a stand still. the president has agreed to evacuate the united states from the middle of the country on down. one thing that bothers me at this point, this is a global catastrophe, yet we focus on the u.s. and only a few characters. you really want me to feel the drama of all this, take me on a tour of the world as we all suffer.
we watch our hero and his two companions, struggling to trek through the snow to new york. here's the scene from backdraft, where one of them sacrifices himself for the other two. you wanna give sacrifice, then show me a mother giving up her child to survive as she passes in the storm or something. this is ultimately where this movie went south for me and became Hollywood blockbuster cheese.
our hero's show us a moment of romance... the president doesn't make it, putting the vice in charge... our heroine is close to death... astronauts in the orbiting space station show us the magnitude of the storm... the storm will be at it's worst point shortly... there's a pointless wolf chase scene... our hero's narrowly survive the instant freeze from the eye of the storm... the storm relinquishes...
there are some more amazing effects of new york in the new ice age, but we've already been pulled from the scale of it all, by the previous scenes... scientist dad finds son in new york... the new president gives us a message of how we brought this ice age on ourselves, by using up the earth and that we shall prevail... there are survivors! we see people getting rescued from the rooftops of skyscrapers... our hero's are safe.
so what's my conclusion, worth watching. great start, fantastic scenes, but fell short at the end and didn't present a global catastrophe fell as advertised.