A disaster movie - quite literally

Rating: 5/10 (14 January 2005)

What is it with Hollywood? Why could this movie not have spanned a couple of years instead of a measly week? The catastrophe would have been just as big and the images just as spectacular, and both much more believable. What could have been a thought provoking warning simply degraded into the disaster voyeurism we had with similar movies from the late 70s and early 80s, minus the gory but often creative highlights. This, and a strange stereotype scientist apparently still alive and kicking in Hollywood today, makes this an impressive b-movie. The stereotype of strangely preoccupied nerds working in very small groups and utterly incapable of social interaction. Take a look around! To cement its status as a b-movie, we'll just add a bit of sunshine and patriotism at the end. Where's the bitter reasoning? Where are the morales? Where are all those things that sold this movie? And for technical quality, let's quote someone at the production stage: "Wolves? Where do we get 5 live wolves? Hey, we'll CGI them and no one will never know"! Even a bunch of hearing impaired retired alsatians would have looked more real! Oh, and a tiny bus blocking a cargo ship? Anyone care to calculate the inertia of 50,000 tons of steel at walking speed? Not a whole lot of believability there. Outrunning a temperature drop? Operating cell phones in a complete wasteland? Active gas lines? Cross-Atlantic phone calls? An insult. A bloody insult!