Below Average Disaster Movie

Rating: 6/10 (24 November 2005)

Some interesting scenes, but mostly this apocalyptic mess fails as an entertaining movie.
Seventies disaster movies meet global warming. As you can expect, this is a movie where contrived rescue missions and horrible acting meet relentless demographic scanning.
Almost all the Black characters in here are geeks, Emmy Rossum ("Mystic River") continually has this crazy eyed expression, Jake Gyllenhaal's "cute" acting is getting boring really quickly and is strictly aimed at teen-aged girls, and the Dennis Quaid/Harrison Ford role is a little too "heroic" and unthinking at the same time.
To top it all off, two regulars from the "24" TV series are in there, AND the lead character is called "Jack".
The plot devices come on heavy and strong. You cringe, every time someone suggests "let's take the plane" or "let's take the train". Of course Jack's son is in Manhattan. Of course Jack will try and walk there, even though we have just seen seasoned RAF pilots turn into popsicles in the blink of an eye. You cringe when Emmy Rossum risks her life to retrieve a passport, even though a 100 foot wall of water is raging toward her. She survives by walking up a flight of stairs, of course, otherwise the love interest would have disappeared from the story. And what would a movie about the next ice age be without a love interest.
Like so many movies, this one started off as a good idea, and the movie was sort of organized around that idea. As a result, no one managed to stop and think about a plot.
Recommended only if you are a hardcore disaster movie fan and want to be able to say "I have seen them all".