Well, the F/X are cool ... (SPOILERS)

Rating: 3/10 (28 May 2004)

The first half of the movie - all the destruction - held my interest. Tornadoes tore L.A. apart, helicopters dropped out of the air when their fuel lines froze up, and a news guy got clobbered by a huge chunk of debris.
I'd pay matinee prices to see that again. Others in the audience seemed to be having fun too: there was laughing at appropriate moments, and helpful instructions were called out to the characters.
The last half was useless. The movie was going for character-in-barely-plausible-danger thrills, but achieved "deja plus": I had the sense I'd already seen those exact same characters endangered in the exact same breathless barely plausible ways, only this time it wasn't as good.
Oh no! The female lead has been concealing an infected scratch! And now she has passed out with fever! This must be treated immediately! We need powerful antibiotics! But! We're snowed in! In the New York City Public Library! Where can we get such antibiotics?! Wait! Remember the Russian freighter that has drifted into flooded New York City, and that's resting just outside the library door?! Conveniently, even?! Let's check its infirmary! Great idea, let's three of us go! Oh no! The infirmary door is locked! I have an idea! Let's climb outside the ship and break in through the window! OK, we're in! Oh no! Who would have thought the labels on the bottles would be in Russian?! This will delay us until ... omigod! digital wolves! Run! Run! Run ... Whew! That newly-introduced complication almost finished us, but we consumed 10 minutes of screen time, and all it cost was some minor bites to the least sympathetic character in our group ... Omigod! We're down to our last box of exclamation points! Maybe the freighter has office supplies!
And it's *all* like that after the good special effects, the ones they tease you with in the trailers. The audience was pretty restless in the second half. Someone tried to start an ovation when the credits rolled, and received zero support. He/she stopped trying long before the lights came up.
It's like this: I was pretty fond of the movie initially. But then the large-scale special effects stopped, and only familiar, IQ-sapping clichés were left to carry the film to its conclusion. You can pretty much tell when the movie has shot its bolt -- so, leave right then, and you might still feel OK about spending your time and money.