great disaster movie without trying to be more

Rating: 9/10 (28 June 2005)

I wanted to not like the movie and read very different reviews before I went to the screening. I was waiting for the typical Hollywood clichés but to my surprise Spielberg tried to avoid them.
I expected Criuse to be that super hero that saves them all, but he is just a normal man with all its weaknesses. I expected typical love story that gives the main character its strength, but there was no. Spielberg doesn't waste time with all those things and concentrates on very few characters to tell the story through their point of view.
I think Tom Cruise' performance was not his greatest but then this is not a character movie, but plain and simple a disaster movie with plenty of effects and action. Not only were the effects amazing and impressive, but the whole visual style was convincing and interesting. I was drawn into the action and suspense all the time and enjoyed the whole movie just the way it is.
The more I think about it, the better I like the movie. I didn't mind the quick ending at all. I'm so fed up with endless melodramic heroic endings that never seem to end and only try to squeeze a tear out of your eye for the sake of it.
The only negative point in the story is when Cruise becomes a killer. That was a totally unnecessary point in the plot. Especially since the purpose of it was that the daughter-father bond becomes stronger right after he did it (she puts herself in his arms while he still has blood from the killing on him). Why he put that in the story is beyond me.
Nevertheless one of the best disaster movies I have seen in a long time.