Lacking in disaster scenes

I preferred the focus on the characters and their struggles to find each other, get to a safe place. Many others movies go big on the disaster explosions and cityscapes blowing to bits but give really weak character stories. How many times do we have to see a CGI’d Eiffel Tower blow up? Here the characters were frantic, making bad decisions under stress as they raced against the clock. They also showed real concern for one another and felt remorse for actions they were forced to take. I appreciated that human angle. Whereas in other disaster films the wooden characters just stand there, mouths agape watching some horrific thing, then make wisecracks about it. That doesn’t create the right mood.

I fully agree. Couldn't give a toss about the characters and their struggles. Hated the dumb kid. Disaster movies should not have a dramatic subplot. Like the love story in Pearl Harbor, ruined the movie. Too many movies get ruined by introducing unnecessary love stories. Or hiring justin long.

Exactly. The film got too caught up in the sideshow. Nothing else matters when a comet is coming.

This movie is more of a drama cloaked in a disaster movie. It’s a kind of annoying habit of Hollywood to use a science fiction concept to dress up an otherwise conventional drama.

The problem isn’t the presence of drama, there are great science fiction films which have drama, it’s that usually when they dress up a conventional drama, the drama is kind of bad and the science fiction element is only given cursory attention.