There’s always been something rather perverse about the
natural disaster sub-genre. Starting and subsequently nose-diving during the
70’s, disaster films have always presented themselves as a showing of
solidarity between people of different backgrounds working together to avert
the titular disaster. However, in recent years with the continuing threat of
climate change, it has kept that same mentality but added the spectacle nature
of visual effects into the mix. Rather than watching people unite to show the
world working as one for a change, it turned into taking joy out of seeing the
world get crushed by the forces of nature. I know that some men literally just
want to watch the world burn, but given how the writing quality of these films
have spiralled out into thin but plentiful casts who exist solely to witness
the hand of God flatten the Earth, these films aren’t being made with actual humanity
in them these days. I’d be far more disheartened by this if it wasn’t for the
one shining positive that a lot of these films share, but all in good time. For
right now, let’s look at the latest attempt to pull off global carnage in the
cinema.
