This is a trip to the library they'll never forget.

Rating: 4/10 (11 May 2015)

The New York Public library at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street never got such a floor mopping as it gets in this silly but sometimes exciting disaster movie that is at its weakest when dealing with the family situation of climate expert Dennis Quaid and doctor Sela Ward. He's too busy predicting climate changes to really be a husband to the compassionate Ward and a father to somewhat nerdy Jake Gyllenhaal. Jake happens to be in New York for a science seminar when the world's climate prepares to shift majorly.
When the film's outrageous special effects take over, the movie is at its most compelling, but rather than just presenting these characters dealing with the disastrous situation, it takes them into a level of soap opera that fortunately most disaster movies of the 1970's only hinted at. Quaid prepares in the face of disaster to get from Washington D.C. to New York, ending up walking there from Philadelphia and desperately trying to hide from "the eye of the storm" that would freeze him to death instantly. That freezing is shown happening to a helicopter pilot caught in the eye, and also shows some solitary scientists facing their last moments with dignity in the coldness of Scotland. The stranded people in the library in New York includes a disgruntled librarian (possibly based upon some of the real staff I've seen there) who doesn't believe in God but refuses to allow them to burn the Guttenberg bible, the oldest written document in the world. That bible has been on display at the library in a glass case, and makes an interesting metaphor for the spiritual emptiness of a world which had gone cold long before the poles started melting.
Of course, New York isn't the only place affected by this disaster. Los Angeles is shown being ripped apart by a super tornado (a combination of three smaller ones), and the destruction of the city (particularly the erasing of the Hollywood sign) is just a preliminary to what the same director would do 8 years later with the even more outrageous "2012". Like "Titanic", the special effects gets at some point to be just way too much, but there are some moments of intensity that just can't be surpassed. At two hours, this isn't overly long, even though the whole "family" message could have been shorted by at least 10-15 minutes. The more interesting characters are the minor ones, particularly the homeless black man with the dog, the atheist librarian, as well as Quaid's partner who makes a sacrifice to save him.
Having experienced potential disaster in L.A. by living through the 1994 Northridge earthquake, I noticed that movie watchers at the video store I worked at became fascinated during this time by disaster movies, and as a result, films with earthquakes became much requested rental fair. A viewing of the film "Volcano" at the Beverly Connection had the audience in cheers when the very building where I was got to be blown up. Fascination with disaster and seeing destruction of famous sites seems to be much more interesting to viewers going to these movies than the personal drama which took too much time to set up and lacked in the excitement of the rest of the movie. Still, this movie will always have a special place in my movie going memory with a huge billboard both in Times Square and the Sunset Strip where a frozen torch at the tip of the Statue of Liberty was seen barely coming out of the snowy base.