Big let down.

Rating: 3/10 (7 August 2005)

I looked forward to the movie as a sort of super disaster movie. The science of it looked hokey even in the previews. Watching the movie it continued to seriously decline. The acting was mostly so so with Dennis Quaid seeming a bit too stereotyped.
The movie starts out with Jack Hall a climatologist preaching the evils of global warming to a delegation and insulting the VP of the US. All through the movie I thought I should be at the church of Green Peace instead of watching a movie. After the initial sermon was delivered we were propelled quickly into fairly well done natural disasters which tended to have no real basis in the movie except to slip in death and destruction. If it were meant to show a sample of the climate change it focused only on the "evil" industrial nations and ignored the likely more severe effects non-industrial nations would suffer.
Then comes the storms. One of which leaves New York heavily flooded leaving Jack Hall's son and companions stranded in a NY City library. Their fight for survival is trivialized and social dynamics completely ignored. I never felt sympathy for the stranded nor did the preaching end at any time. Every scene had subtle political and social jibes. Few with any factual basis. Jack Hall soon as he is proved right by the disasters that only he predicted soon takes off on an epic journey, or what would be an epic journey that turns into a boring stroll to rescue his son.
For a film that purportedly espouses environmental issues wolves are poorly portrayed in this film. So not only does the film do disservice to environmentalists with poor science it is an absolute insult to those who know wolf behavior. A polar bear would have been much more exciting and realistic as the danger to the stranded scholars (Jack Hall's son and companions).
To cut a long and boring narrative short there are cut overs to Mexico blanketed in snow warmly accepting a billion or more US residents after initially closing the border. Lets see. Paniced refugees. A major countries Government evacuating an entire nation to Mexic. War would be a logical result. Mexico would not have the resources to support so many refugees. Where did Canada's population go or was Canada completely wiped out? What about nations in the South. The movie seemed to think only the Northern Hemisphere would be affected.
I found this movie to be a grown up fairy tale for lip service environmentalists. There were some special effects that were cool. Other than that no real reason to see this movie unless you are extremely bored.