Having nothing new to add to the usual disaster story, the film hangs its hat on shocking images of natural disasters striking major landmarks. Even this is old hat, Roland Emmerich having given us the juicy thrill of watching the White House explode in “Independence Day”, but given the fact that this film may be as much accurate forecast of climate change as it is asinine fiction, the sight of so many twisters and tidal waves does manage to chill the blood from time to time.

Equally frightening is Dennis Quaid’s earnest scientist and Jake Gyllenhaal’s plucky high schooler. The actors aren’t bad, but they trundle through the film as if wearing large HUMAN INTEREST placards pasted on their foreheads. There’s nothing for them to do but flee. Perhaps the most terrifying character, however, is the Dick Cheney-like Vice President. The disasters give him and his Washington cronies the pretext to evacuate everyone in America down into Mexico and points south. Let’s hope the real Cheney doesn’t see this movie, or with the help of a FOX News crew and a wind machine there’ll be natural disasters to add to his list of false pretexts for invading other sovereign nations.