Overkill, enviromentalism is lost in the CGI.

Rating: 6/10 (28 May 2004)

I'm a card carrying Sierra Club member. If not for the stupid war and the slinking economy Bush's environmental policy would be #1 on my list for why I'd not (and didn't in 2000) vote for him.
But this movie stinks of agenda: the dolt Vice President in the film might as well be Dick Cheney: the super storms only occur in the Northern Hemisphere (i.e. the realm of Western Civilization); the glaciers reach down to the 30th degree latitude (the ice reaches down to northern Texas and Florida, and all of Italy) which cannot happen but serves a political argument. Which is really what this film is, a political argument.
Emmerich is trying to say that mankind cannot continue on our course of unabated consumption and abuse of the environment we live in; which is true, nature does balance itself with impunity. But how he illustrates it isn't the truth and a total exaggeration. The tornados chewing up L.A.? I guess giant tornados destroying skyscrapers is more memorable than cornfields in Nebraska. Rabid animals? Yes, we get the point Emmerich - nature is kicking butt and taking names. It was the speech at the end about the 3rd World that Emmerich was laying it on the thickest though.
A movie like this doesn't help the environmental movement. It twists science, blows things completely out of proportion. It doesn't reach out to the people it needs to reach out to. Environmental aficionados will see this movie and feel somewhat pleased, but everyone else will see it as bordering on the realm of absurdity or silliness and leave the theater feeling entertained (but none the more aware of the problems facing humanity at present) or angry.
I give this movie a 6 out of 10 for ambition, special effects (atypical Emmerich destruction fest) and the father/son subplot.