The Day After Tomorrow
reviewed by Benn "Where's the Humanity?" Farrell
& Brian "The Naked Gun" Felts
Emmerich's latest is riddled with messages of environmental concerns
and thinking of the generations of the future, not-so-subtly placed
within a story about global warming causing a new ice age for the northern
hemisphere.
Dennis Quaid (The Alamo) plays climatologist Jack Hall attempting to warn governments
of the world about the threat of polar ice caps melting, and the North
Atlantic current changing temperature. As the story progresses, within 10 days, the entire
northern hemisphere is trapped in ice as well as Hall's friends, wife and colleagues.
Before you know it, all kinds of people start dying like crazy.
Of course, there has to be a lot of death. It's a major disaster flick
with multi tornadoes hitting Los Angeles, ocean levels rising and drowning
New York City and a bunch of other things which make people like me feel
bad about people dying in mass quantities.
Now, since I felt bad about everyone dying, I am going to make
that a credit to Emmerich, because in movies like "Independence Day,"
"Titanic" and the like, I NEVER felt bad for anyone. That's what they get
for taking roles in such crap movies.
However, as for "The Day After Tomorrow," I did feel bad about so many
people losing life, so I guess the presentation of this
disaster film was better than recent ones. I haven't felt this bad about a
disaster flick since "The Poseidon Adventure."
There was a lot of heart in this film, even though some of its moments
were overplayed and too heroic. However, conflict in Hall's
story, attempting to hike from Washington D.C. to New York City to rescue
his son from the NYC Public Library, was without a lot of conflict.
Yes, I understand his character spends months in Antarctica taking
core samples, but come on. How long would it take him to make that trip on
foot, really?
Overall, I liked it, Jake Gyellenhall (October Sky) was solid as Quaid's son, and Ian
Holm (Lord of the Rings trilogy) chewed up any scene he was in. Otherwise, most performances were
average. Go see it. Have fun. Watch people die. Yea! Benn - Where's the Humanity?
I did not find this movie half as good as Benn did. The only reason I gave it the rating I did
is because I liked the special effects. That's about it.
Ignore the fact the science behind the movie is non-existent, in the speed the catastrophe
happened. My major problem with the movie is--where I disagree with Benn, I did not care about one
person who died in the movie. The reason why true disaster movies are great is you care about
the people who die. Two of the best disaster movies are "The Towering Inferno" and "The Poseidon Adventure."
These two films are excellent in mixing special effects and story, in a manner where you care about the life and
death of every individual. "The Day After Tomorrow" falls well short of comparison to these two movies.
However, the special effects are outstanding, and I like them a lot. I also enjoyed the acting of Dennis
Quaid (Cold Creek Manor). He had the best part and the most lines. I also liked the young
actor playing his son Sam, Jake Glyllenhaal (Bubble Boy), but he couldn't do enough to carry his scenes
alone. Oh, there was one special effect
I did not like. If you are going to sink New York city under 50 feet of water, no animals from the
New York Zoo are going to survive. The "Wolf" scene, chasing Sam and his friends on the tanker was unnecessary
and made the sequence go from intense to stupid in a matter of seconds.
I do like Roland Emmerich movies. "The Patriot" is my favorite of his, but he missed the boat with
this one. It was not as bad a stinker as "Godzilla" or "Independence Day." He could have done better.
Watch this movie for the special effects, but get ready to laugh a lot. I did. Brian - the Naked Gun
I must be honest. When director Rolland Emmerich (The Patriot) has a movie out marketed as "from the
creators of 'Independence Day,'" I don't expect much from it. However, this
may have bettered my opinion of "The Day After Tomorrow."