Great movie. Kids might get frightened by it from the intense peril.

Intense and perilous.

I went into this movie thinking I would be let down by a weak storyline, but hopefully dazzled by special effects. I decided to let go of any expectations and ended up enjoying the movie greatly. Yes, it mainly revolves around special effects and the "what if?" factor of a natural disaster, but it was done fairly well with decent characters. This is no "oscar winning" film, but it carries an strong political message concerning our planet's future. An overall fun and insightful "Hollywood" movie.

If you like disaster flicks without a lot of substance, then you will like this one. I can't see what value it will hold for children though, except to just freak them out about something they have no control over and is unlikely to happen. Lots of dead bodies, but not really hardcore gore. This one is about on par with Volcano, that lame movie about L.A. and lava spewing all over. Bad acting (boy, is Dennis Quaid aging poorly!), crummy script, pretty fun effects, but not quite as amazing as everyone was making them out to be. For instance, the obligatory scary animals (wolves) were worse than lame. The tornadoes eating up L.A. were pretty cool though. A much better movie of this vein is Dantes Peak, which only has a couple really scary scenes. I still fast forward through the part when the Grandma wades through the acid-filled lake. The acting is much better in that one and the script is not so much a cringer. I give this one 3-stars simply because the idea was interesting and the effects were cool.