This film could have learnt one lesson from Ron Howard's excellent Apollo 13: you don't need baddies to generate suspense. And you don't need miraculous coincidences -- stretching credulity tighter than Homer Simpson's underpants -- to save the day.

Petersen pulls off the thrills at a stomach lurching pace, and with its requisite Hollywood ham...

Petersen's vigilant, enlivening direction never allows the story's death-of-mankind topic to undermine its personal powers, deftly mixing in humor, as well as other tonal lighteners, to nurture it.

It's a very silly film, but it's also grandly entertaining for its first 90 minutes, watching Petersen keep things on the move as catastrophe comes for all.