It's the end of the world but not as we know it...

Rating: 4/10 (23 June 2008)

Contemporary "disaster" flick, making up in bombast and special effects what this type of movie almost customarily loses by way of coherent plotting, thin characterisation and hackneyed dialogue. We get all sorts of clichéd situations flung at us here, from "buddy buddy", to "teen romance", "family dysfunction" - and that's just involving Jake Gyllenhaal alone! The movie would like to think it's a "The Searchers" for the "noughties", as "I told you I was right, Mr President" maverick scientist Dennis Quaid sets out on an epic journey to New York to rescue his disenchanted son, played with doe-eyed solipsism by a typecast Jake Gyllenhaal. Jake and his two college chums, one his would-be girlfriend, of course get caught in the epicentre of the perfect storm, which, much to my chagrin has already by that time taken out my native Scotland and now threatens to engulf NYC. Somehow by a combination of ingenuity, bravery and of course that particular type of Hollywood luck which seems to bless the lead players in all films of this type Dennis somehow makes it to Jake and his crew for that special bonding moment you know has been due from the first moments of the film. There are really no acting kudos here, everyone speaks their clichéd dialogue reasonably enough (I was able to successfully play "predict the next line" on many occasions throughout) so that the film stands or falls on its SFX. On the whole these are fine although any involving a downward shot onto a dangling individual over an abyss (which happens at least twice) are poorly finished although the large scale depictions of NYC flooded by a tsunami and the shots of earth from space are convincing. The film tries but fails to credibly connect with and elevate itself to the ranks of previous sci-fi classics in terms of use of symbolic imagery, most blatantly, the incorporation of the Statue of Liberty from "Planet of The Apes". A film like this is okay if you disengage your brain at the pop-corn stand, but I long for an intelligent disaster movie with credible characters speaking naturally and behaving normally. Some humour would have been of use too. Three "wozzat for?" moments to make you scratch your head bemusedly - the ridiculous chase scene involving escaped wolves, the insertion of Culture Club's "Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me" into the soundtrack and surely the longest set of technical credits ever racked up by a single movie.