Why do people hate Roland Emerlich movies?

There are people out there who hate Independence Day with a passion. Not the American holiday, though I imagine there are some who hate that, but the film. You know the one, Will Smith as heroic pilot, Jeff Goldblum as the scientist that people ignore until it's (almost) too late and so on. These people claim that the film is just a string of cliches held together by special effects, that it's completely impossible that Smith could fly the flying saucer, or that Goldblum could get his mac to interface with the aliens network, and so save the day.
These people are simultaneously both right in every detail, and utterly wrong in their conclusions. Independence Day is a mass of glorious cliche, the biggest and most spectacular B-movie you could ever hope to see. It makes no attempts to be anything more, and succeeds admirably in all that it attempts.
So it turns out that my regular film companion is a Disaster Movie fan. Generally something I can take or leave myself, but why should I pick all the flicks? 2012 is directed by the same guy as was Independence Day, and boy, does it show. Starting with some highly dubious science (a planetary alignment causes the sun to emit neutrinos capable of microwaving the Earth's core) it rapidly becomes a mad case as a family man tries to save his kids, estranged wife and her whiny boyfriend, Russian oligarch tries to buy his way out of trouble, conscience stricken scientist gets increasingly upset that the government is saving itself and so on. Earth is quaked, volcanoes erupt, tsunamis inundate, planes crash. All happening just slowly enough that the heroes can out drive, out fly, or occassionally out run them.
There are nods left right and centre. The scientist's dad works on a cruise ship, mainly so a couple of Posidon Adventure riffs can be thrown in, there's a lot of This Island Earth in the final half hour. But bigger. And sillier.
2012 is a mad romp, the maddest of mad romps. It never tries to be anything else, and it hits every target it aims at. If you expect anything else you will have missed the point entirely and will likely be sorely disapointed.