|
|
  
Back Shelf Beauties
|
The Day After Tomorrow The Day After Tomorrow is the second disaster movie to trash New York this year. However, while the Olsen Sisters' New York Minute was a movie so bad that it was a test of strength and will to sit through it all the way to the bitter, idiotic, dreadful end (I deserve a medal for that one!), The Day After Tomorrow is a movie so bad you can't help but laugh and laugh and laugh. The Day After Tomorrow is a camp classic and a modern day Poseidon Adventure. Believe it or not, you are going to have a good time at this bad movie. (see conflict of interest note at the end of this review) Dennis Quaid stars as Jack - a climatologist stationed at a major Antarctic ice shelf when it gives way, and makes him start to worry about the ramifications for mother Earth. He believes that a massive climate shift, caused by global warming, could throw the earth into a new ice age and result in massive storms that will threaten the lives of every man, woman and child. While he thought this cataclysmic event would happen generations from now, and Jack has failed to convince the current administration about the dangers our country is facing, his hypothesis has started to come true in shocking fashion. As the world is devastated by massive storms, everyone heads South desperately seeking shelter from the impending ice age, but Jack heads north from Washington, DC to New York to save his son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), before the great city is swallow up by water, snow and ice. Who will survive? Writer/director Roland Emmerich and co-writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff have crafted a movie that couldn't be campier if they tried. All of the clichés are here including the scientist warning us about impending doom; the individual plights of our stereotypical, pseudo-symbolic "everyman" characters; sexual innuendo; people from all walks of life bonding together; and foreshadowing that screams at you, "REMEMBER THIS SCENE BECAUSE IT IS IMPORTANT LATER!" We even get to see heroic acts of bravery so unbelievable that you have to laugh when the actors treat it seriously and chew up the scenery as they deliver hammy lines of dialogue that will make Shelley Winters and William Shatner jealous (To save his son, Dennis Quaid swears to WALK from DC to New York in the face of a hurricane-like blizzard that freezes everything in its path!). These are the scenes that will live in your memory for years to come, not the political stuff you have been hearing about. Unfortunately, Emmerich and Nachamanoff try to throw in lots of political junk including satire of the current administration, pro-environmentalist platitudes about how we are reaping what we sow if we don't change our behavior now, and a message telling us to be kind to the Third World. Who the heck wants that when Emmerich can show us the Hollywood sign getting blown away by a tornado? Sure, they throw some science at us to explain why the world is a facing a new ice age due to global warming, but it just comes off as blah blah blah that helps us pass the time until we get to why we want to see this movie - tornadoes hit Los Angeles, New York is swallowed by the rising seas, the northern hemisphere freezes over and Americans have to sneak across the border to Mexico. That's pure Hollywood, B-movie magic! If I want some debate about the environment or eliminating Third World Debt, I'll watch the presidential debates this fall or buy a U2 CD, especially when Emmerich and Nachamanoff slap us across the face with it with all of the subtlety of a snowball to the head. Some movies are the place for making a political statement, but not The Day After Tomorrow, which strives to be summer fun and excels at creating the kind of blow-you-away special effects you expect, while the writing team shows its weakness for political satire. The political scenes take away from the movie's heart and soul and detract from its plot about individuals saving what matters most to them when the world is coming to an end - Jack chases after his son, a doctor cares for a dying patient, Sam tries to protect the woman he loves, and more. That's what is compelling in The Day After Tomorrow, not some debate about whether the environment or the economy is more important. If you don't take The Day After Tomorrow too seriously, and can somehow avoid the annoying political activists situating themselves outside of theaters to stuff their propaganda into your hand and down your throat, you will enjoy this movie. Quaid does a good job with his role, even though he will be the butt of many jokes. He's a venerable actor who got stuck with a couple of losers this year (The Alamo and The Day After Tomorrow), but Quaid will survive and make some good movies soon. Gyllenhaal seems a bit lost among all of the action and I didn't see that ability to dig down deep and show us his character's emotions the same way he did in previous movies like Moonlight Mile, while Ian Holm has a role that I wish was much bigger since he provides some heft and gravitas to the movie. The Day After Tomorrow is a special effects tour de force that is also a cliché-filled celebration of the bad, but I wish Emmerich and Nachamanoff had come up with a better ending. They wrote themselves into a corner by creating a storm that can destroy humanity, and needed a little something bigger and better than what we got. 2 ½ Waffles (Out Of 4), for all of the wrong reasons, but it feels so right! Conflict of Interest Disclosure: In the interest of fairness, you need to know that the DC-based FOX 5 WTTG-TV station prominently featured in the movie is the same one where I appear to review films on the Fox 5 Morning News. They don't pay me enough to influence my opinion, and none of the station personalities appear in the movie, so take this disclosure for whatever you think it is worth. However, I feel The Day After Tomorrow did capture the essence of Washington, DC when panicked DC residents were shown stocking up on bottled water and toilet paper as the snowstorm moves in. I guess we have a reputation. Copyright 2004 - WaffleMovies.com
|
