Spoilers

When i was randomly flicking the channels last week i saw this was on & was like damn it, its near the end. Ive never seen this. I need to do it. So I was very surprised when i saw it was on Disney plus. I’ve always been interested in this. Also unintentional back to back Denis Quaid, thats something i never thought id type.

This film is perfectly fine. It really is. The end of the word drama & the over the top-ness of the world about to end is spot on. & i sat there watching it expecting something huge & major to happen in act 3 & it didnt. Most of the drama & over the top-ness happened in act 3 & i felt a little bit cheated out of that. Considering this was an end of the world were all dead race against time to get to people & save others, all the bits that happened in act 3 i was not concerned with at all. I knew the right people were going to get their way through it & that this or that was going to contribute. I just felt a little bit cheated considering what this genre usually offers. I was not worried at all in act 3, which should be when im the most tense.

Jakes potential can be seen her absolutely. However everyone hes been put with i the library is not his level at all. This & Donny made Jake who he is for sure 100%. Its there he just needed better actors to be around & give him maybe even his sister in the film (not as a love interest) as someone to act off, it would have made so many more people go oh damn Jake can act & not take them as long to find his true acting potential.

Quaid is good, all his tropes of being a dad not caring about his family, work being more important & the end of the world happening to make him prioritise his life are classic tropes. But at no point is he deemed an action hero in this. I get that it is all about science & proving his theories, but even when you know hes going to walk to get to his son to save him like he promised, you know quite early on that he is just basically going to walk & walk to new york isnt he.

I was pretty sure after that early jump when he drilling & the ice shelf breaking & that big jump, we were going to have to have another big jump like that or for part of new york to snap away from the rest of it but no it did. I was sure that was a foreshadow of something to come. I was disappointed. I mean even the set pieces werent the best. I know tornadoes are hard to fake, especially in 2003 when they made this film, but some of the bits were like well thats poorly done (except when the cleaner survives the tornado going through the office, i liked that). It wasnt that or the waves that got me going wow it was the close up demises. The guy in the car getting crushed, the sign flying into the news reporter. They were the clever ones. I know its all CGI but they still had to get that right & while the wave & bits looked so faked, they nailed those bits. Im glad the film go that right. YEah act 3 lacked badly. There was no major pay off other than people lived through it woohoo.

Are Decathlons really that big a thing in America? seriously? Like every school has a team & they all compete so much for the ultimate brain prize.

When they said the royals were being evacuated, i was with them with the eye roll & the of course. & then for the helicopters to fly through the eye of the storm before they get there & those crashing, that was actually quite refreshing & interesting turn of events. Also the instant freezing to death. I mean a good way to go. You have no real idea of it. Your just frozen solid. I mean whats not to say that people cant be defrosted years to come. I mean science bitch.

I didnt care about the president or vice president at all. So when the President was hardly in it & then died off screen i didnt give a crap. & the vice president just not listening to any science… i mean… yea that would so be the case & then still sitting there going nope not listening to the science & the economy being more important until its too late or being upset that someone was once angry with someone else, but come on the world is at steak here (please go find my dont look up review). I cared more about the people who died in that Scottish outpost who accepted their fate & died horrendously, i felt for them.

By the time we got to the boat & the wolves, i had completely forgotten that bother were a thing if im honest. We spent so much time in doors with people & not seeing the weird weather at this point that when these two things needed to be a thing they suddenly werent. So when that was part of the Act 3 show down i didnt really care.

The moment that made me laugh the most was when they were deciding which books to burn & they were busy going no thats Shakespeare what makes that better than that & someone shouts guys there a whole section on taxation down here. I laughed for far to long. As an accountant i should not be laughing at that but i really really did laugh at that & it hurt. Because yea that can all be burnt mate, burn it all. No one cares not even the tax people care ahahahahahahah.

I genuinely thought his estranged wide was gonna die & that hed have to pick between her & his son, because she stayed behind to be with that kid who couldnt leave hospital. That broke my heart a little & then restored faith as someone came back for them. I was not expecting that at all.

Also so interesting that everyone when they needed to crossed the boarder & were just allowed to immigrate without permission. Yea world governments. Look what people do to help others. IT makes me sick that all these years later, this is still up for debate. Everyones just human. Let them in. Let them travel, they just want to be safe & live a decent life. Its so so bad. & the hypocrisy in this film is insane but proves a point.

It felt clunky at points. It went for it with some of the set pieces but then when it wanted to be exposition it just didnt deal with it either in an expert way or dumb it down (until it came to drawing lines on a map) it didnt find a middle ground properly either. This was a end of the world disaster movie that did kill lots of people off but the disasters werent as epic as the synopsis or the film made it out to be. It just lacked.

The people watching it all happen from the space station, now that was interesting. But i wish we had more of that to explain why & maybe they could have helped more with the weather patterns. It felt like i missed opportunity, but im glad they get the last word on it.

The message about the polar icecaps &the climate is so important (also shout out to old school flip phones at one disaster point in the film) & people still arent listening. We are fucking it up. I try & do my best recycling, walking when i can, or using public transport, but i do sometimes sit here & go im putting in all this effort but the people 5 roads are way have a disposable bbq. You know. You do wonder why some people have no common sense & try to do there bit & listen to the bloody science. I mean its August here, i put the film on, & half way through a lightning storm happened. Ive hardly had summer at all this year, thats due to the way we are treating our planet. Last summer it was too hot, this summer weve had oooh all of 10 days out of 80 so far of sunshine & warmth. Listen to the earth peoples.

I am glad ive watched this film. I am. But it didnt live up to it being a political piece, or a save the world piece, or a disaster movie. What i saw was an okay film, which tried to get a few messages across, but it was not what i was expecting. I wanted it to be grander & more out of your mind, but at the end of the day, it was just another survive the end of the world CGI disaster movie, with a very young Jake.

I might watch it again but not in a hurry.