Where's Storm when you need her?

Rating: 4/10 (10 January 2005)

How could something that cost $125 million to make be this cheesy? It's unreasonable to demand a thought-provoking plot from what is essentially a special-effects movie. Still, if you're going to dispense with plausibility, intelligent dialog, and characters of any depth; then it seems reasonable to expect the effects to be stunning. This movie simply takes bits and pieces that have been seen before in other places (_Deep Impact_, _Twister_, and Discovery Channel documentaries, to name a few) and stitches them together into a cautionary tale that would be more aptly called "The Environment for Dummies". The characters, whose vellum thinness is inadequately offset with bathetic earnestness between screaming set pieces, are so cookie-cutter that the actors could all have phoned in their parts and let the computer graphics department draw them in. (Then again, with this budget, are we sure they didn't?) As far as the "action" goes, about thirty minutes into the movie, it became completely unnecessary to watch the rest. Not a single gasp of surprise or clutch of pearls awaited.
As far as the principals: it would be easy to lambaste them, but why bother? Laurence Olivier couldn't have turned in a creditable performance with this unfortunate script and a director who obviously ought to stick with commercials for cold and allergy medication or adaptations of Jack London novels (reference scenes in New York City). It must be terribly hard to act one's best in a vehicle with a complete lack of subtlety, nuance, or development.
It must be said, though, that the film does offer two huge consolations: that when the going gets tough, strangers will band together to survive in supremely adverse circumstances; and that when the planet's environment eventually turns against us, Hollywood will be one of the first things to go.