Common Sense Note
The movie has intense peril and violence with the destruction of much of the world. Millions of people are killed, mostly off-screen, though there are some dead bodies and major characters are killed. There are brief images of grisly injuries. Characters drink, including drinking as a way to dull the sadness. Characters sacrifice themselves, sometimes by killing themselves, to save others. A strength of the movie is the portrayal of men and women of different races with courage and ability and devotion, including a loving inter-racial marriage.
Families who see this movie could do some research on global warming and on efforts by scientists and politicians to prevent further damage to the ozone layer. They could also talk about why the librarian wanted to save the Gutenberg Bible and about how all of the characters think about (and rearrange) their priorities in the face of disaster. Would your choice for your favorite vacation be like Sam's? Whose decisions do you approve of and why? The politicians speak of "triage," making the very tough decisions to let some people die so that more can live. How do people make those choices? What do you think about the way they decide to define "win?" What will happen in the weeks following the end of the movie, and what will the world look like a year later?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Nell Minow
A disaster movie has to be about more than the cool effects. It does not have to have compelling characters or memorable dialogue. It does not even have to make sense in logical terms, but it has to feel true the same way that a myth or an urban legend does. The best disaster films satisfy the audience's innate need for justice and redemption. But the rest, like this one, just show off a lot of cool effects.
Co-writer and director Roland Emmerich gave us an entertaining disaster movie with Independence Day. This one has some of the same ingredients, but they don't mix as well because it does not have the some heart or the zing that Will Smith, Robert Loggia, and Jeff Goldblum (and co-writer/producer Dean Devlin) brought to Independence Day.
It has a hero, Dennis Quaid as Jack Hall, a paeloclimatologist who figures out that the global warming problem is much more serious than we thought. And it has hubris, with the arrogant Vice President of the United States dismissing the Jack's call for action. It has portents -- flocks of birds fleeing New York as the music on the soundtrack goes vwamp-vwamp. It has bleary-eyed and highly caffeinated but earnest bureaucrats spouting important techno-babble about forecast modules, cyclonic systems, critical desalinization points, and the upper troposphere while they peer into computer screens and type on keyboards. It has clunky 50's sci-fi movie dialogue ("If we don't act now, it will be too late!"). It has a dewy young couple (Jake Gyllenhaal and Emmy Rossum as Hall's son Sam and his academic decathlon teammate Laura). It has hope, courage, and honor amidst tragedy.
And it does have some striking visuals and cool special effects, from hailstones the size of basketballs in Tokyo to the crushing of the HOLLYWOOD sign to the flooding of Manhattan. A huge Russian ship floats ghost-like through what once was 5th Avenue. The Statue of Liberty barely emerges above the ice. But to the extent there was ever any pleasure possible in seeing New York City destroyed, that has surely been diminished by the sight of the demolition of the Twin Towers.
This movie gives us too much destruction to take in, but also too little -- we see only a small group of dead bodies, when there would be millions, and the survivors have to deal with problems that are almost quaint and antiseptic compared to the real-life aftermath of lesser disasters we have seen in recent years. The drama seems curiously muted as well; with the exception of the Vice President's arrogance, just about everyone else is uniformly calm, dedicated, resigned, and heroic. Wouldn't we see some panic? Some selfishness? Some desperation? Some consequences? On a large scale, the movie shows that disasters require the sacrifice of some lives, but on a smaller scale a character risks her own life to help someone whose chances of survival are very slim. Combined with preposterous and over the top plot turns, this further diminishes the emotional impact of the movie's themes.
Parents should know that the movie has intense peril and violence with the destruction of much of the world. Millions of people are killed, mostly off-screen, though there are some dead bodies and major characters are killed. There are brief images of grisly injuries. Characters drink, including drinking as a way to dull the sadness. Characters sacrifice themselves, sometimes by committing suicide, to save others. A strength of the movie is the portrayal of men and women of different races with courage and ability and devotion, including a loving inter-racial marriage.
Families who see this movie could do some research on global warming and on efforts by scientists and politicians to prevent further damage to the ozone layer. They could also talk about why the librarian wanted to save the Gutenberg Bible and about how all of the characters think about (and rearrange) their priorities in the face of disaster. Would your choice for your favorite vacation be like Sam's? Whose decisions do you approve of and why? The politicians speak of "triage," making the very tough decisions to let some people die so that more can live. How do people make those choices? What do you think about the way they decide to define "win?" What will happen in the weeks following the end of the movie, and what will the world look like a year later?
Families who enjoy this movie may also enjoy Touching the Void, Armageddon and classic disaster movies like The Towering Inferno.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentBrief non-explicit sexual situation, teen kiss. |
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ViolenceIntense peril, many characters killed, dead bodies, brief graphic wounds. |
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LanguageBrief language |
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Social BehaviorDiverse characters. |
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CommercialismFOX appears many times throughout. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoSome drinking. |
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