| Overall Grade: |
F |
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| Story: |
F |
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| Acting: |
C |
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| Direction: |
F |
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| Visuals: |
B- |
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Insulting My Intelligence is NOT Entertainment!!
by Earl (movies profile)
Aug 31, 2006
59
of
90 people found this review helpful
Intellectual subtlety is not a feature of this movie. Its political agenda was bull-horned at the audience with direct punches to the current presidential administration through actors clearly selected for their close resemblance to Pres. Bush and VP Cheney. Forget that the paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) gets all of the climate forecasts wrong, the blame for the climate disasters of this film are placed at the doorstep of the administration.
Most disturbing to me, and the group of people in my party, is that we literally felt insulted by this movie. While it preached its global warming message with all the fervor of a wild-eyed zealot, the story and its details couldn't deliver the believability needed to swallow this huge horsepill. While the special effects of multiple tornadoes tearing through LA were impressive, it's hard to imagine that news helicopters would still be flying and that reporters would stand a few blocks from a mega twister until a car plows into them. It was impossible to believe that the air was cold enough to freeze a human being in place when there was no visible clouds of air coming from their mouths as they trudged through the skyscraper-high snow, no moisture crystals forming on their mustaches and their exposed noses were not black with frostbite. Anytime they opened their tent in the subzero temperatures they seemed instantly toasty and warm while the wind whistled loud just outside the ripstop nylon. Clearly these storytellers have never been camping in winter! Call me a stickler for detail, but the director dropped the ball - big time - and left me feeling an outsider in his make believe world.
The side story's been done to death, too - a guilty workaholic father risking all to rescue his son in an effort to make up for all the lost years. This time, though, the tried-and-true plotline doesn't work because it, too, is just too implausible. I suppose it was thought that the audience would be awed by his sense of paternal love and duty when Jack Hall left his post, where his expertise might save millions of lives, to trek through the climate disaster of a millennium (or two) to reach his son - a trek that took him from Washington DC to NYC in record time - but it left me cold (pardon the pun). After all, what did he think he could do once he got there? Oh well, there was that contrived pause for a father/son moment of bonding.
This movie was among the worst I've seen and its storyline and direction left those in my party feeling insulted. If you do pay good money to see this preach-y, politically correct, scientifically flawed film, at least go in with a thick skin. |
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