The Day After Tomorrow
The Day After Tomorrow is a disaster film, and I love disaster films, so it was inevitable that I would get to witness Roland Emmerich (infamous director of Independence Day and Godzilla) blow up the Earth again.
He does not disappoint.
Anyone who is a fan of these kinds of films knows the formula. Since there's no real villain to defeat, the heroes become heroes through their sheer will to survive. Thus, we have a paleoclimatologist (professor Jack Hall, played by Dennis Quaid) waging a one-man political war to convince the U.S. government that the world is going to have another ice age. Really soon.
The manifestation of said ice age takes a variety of forms, not the least of which include tidal waves, tornados, hurricanes, softball-sized hail, and killer cold snaps. The killer cold snaps are a new weapon in the terrors wrought by Mother Nature, freezing everything within its path as the temperature drops 100 degrees a second. Or something like that.
Our hero is not a particularly good father - he travels a lot, that's the nature of his job - so it is with particular angst that he discovers his son (Sam Hall, played by Jake Gyllenhal of Donnie Darko fame), is trapped in New York City with all that water and ice. Jack is uniquely equipped to cover frozen terrain because he recently took ice cores from the North Atlantic iceberg shelf. So he sets off to find his son along with his two bumbling but lovable buddies. It's all very American, a sort of road-trip meets disaster movie.
Fortunately, Emmerich has more in mind than just messing up the world, or the movie would be insufferably stupid. Emmerich's vice president seems awfully similar to Dick Cheney .The President even turns to the VP to ask, "What do you think we should do?" in a nod to Bush critics. Ultimately, the First World nations are forced to flee to Third World countries for refuge.
And why? Because we didn't listen to the warnings about global warming and helped kick off an ice age that essentially moves the polar ice caps to somewhere over the U.S. and China.
In New York City, survivors burn books in the public library to keep warm. One librarian, who doesn't believe in God, clings valiantly to the original Gutenberg bible -- a symbol of humanity's civilization in the hands of an atheist.
Democrats everywhere are cackling their heads off.
Wrapped in this allegory are of course the usual disaster elements and required plot devices. We have the unbelieving leader in control, the "will he make it" heart-stopping moment, the love interest, the noble self-sacrifice to save other lives, and more. Everything established in the Poseidon Adventure is here.
From a purely narrative perspective, the movie borders on the nonsensical. Emmerich knows this and eases us into the plot. First we're told an ice age won't happen for thousands of years. Then we're told it will happen in a few years. Then in months. Then in weeks.
Of course, the ice age is integral to the plot and thus can be forgiven. Less forgivable is the extremely fragile all-terrain vehicles that collapse into uselessness when they bump into something, or Jack happening to be present just as the ice shelf falls into the ocean, or the unbelievable (albeit dramatic) effects of the killer cold snaps, or an ocean liner floating through the watery streets of New York. And then there are the wolves.
My wife has a degree in environmental conservation and derived some smug satisfaction from The Day After Tomorrow until the wolves showed up. To elaborate: wolves escape from a local zoo in New York City. They just happen to end up on the aforementioned ocean liner, where our heroes are struggling to find food. Then the wolves act in decidedly cinematic fashion, attacking everyone in sight, even to run away from the food to chase Sam.
I've written a role-playing game book on arctic survival and I'm currently writing a book about werewolves, so I know what I'm talking about when I tell you that wolves would never act like this. It's a slap in the face to the environmentalists who were cheering throughout the movie. Bad Emmerich, bad!
The actors are noticeably visible beneath their cold weather clothing ("How can I emote if no one can see my face?!"). And that's probably a good thing, because there's not very much for any of them to do. The always-lovely Sela Ward plays Dr. Lucy Hall, Jack's wife, and there's a heart-wrenching scene where she must decide if she will stay behind to comfort a child who cannot be easily evacuated. That would be Disaster Flick Plot Device #5.
Gyllenhal carries much of the movie as an ingenious teenager, but he seems a little too old for the pretty young thing (a cute AND smart Emmy Rossum) he pursues. Jake is six years Emmy's elder and no amount of makeup can conceal the difference. Everyone else is a stereotype, although the clichés have evolved somewhat (we now get the "Erkel Guy").
The Day After Tomorrow is an amusing and sardonic attack on American conservative politics and First World excesses. As a cohesive tale of global warming, it is less successful. As a fun disaster flick, it's a serviceable entry in a long list of movies that are otherwise content to blow things up.
He does not disappoint.
Anyone who is a fan of these kinds of films knows the formula. Since there's no real villain to defeat, the heroes become heroes through their sheer will to survive. Thus, we have a paleoclimatologist (professor Jack Hall, played by Dennis Quaid) waging a one-man political war to convince the U.S. government that the world is going to have another ice age. Really soon.
The manifestation of said ice age takes a variety of forms, not the least of which include tidal waves, tornados, hurricanes, softball-sized hail, and killer cold snaps. The killer cold snaps are a new weapon in the terrors wrought by Mother Nature, freezing everything within its path as the temperature drops 100 degrees a second. Or something like that.
Our hero is not a particularly good father - he travels a lot, that's the nature of his job - so it is with particular angst that he discovers his son (Sam Hall, played by Jake Gyllenhal of Donnie Darko fame), is trapped in New York City with all that water and ice. Jack is uniquely equipped to cover frozen terrain because he recently took ice cores from the North Atlantic iceberg shelf. So he sets off to find his son along with his two bumbling but lovable buddies. It's all very American, a sort of road-trip meets disaster movie.
Fortunately, Emmerich has more in mind than just messing up the world, or the movie would be insufferably stupid. Emmerich's vice president seems awfully similar to Dick Cheney .The President even turns to the VP to ask, "What do you think we should do?" in a nod to Bush critics. Ultimately, the First World nations are forced to flee to Third World countries for refuge.
And why? Because we didn't listen to the warnings about global warming and helped kick off an ice age that essentially moves the polar ice caps to somewhere over the U.S. and China.
In New York City, survivors burn books in the public library to keep warm. One librarian, who doesn't believe in God, clings valiantly to the original Gutenberg bible -- a symbol of humanity's civilization in the hands of an atheist.
Democrats everywhere are cackling their heads off.
Wrapped in this allegory are of course the usual disaster elements and required plot devices. We have the unbelieving leader in control, the "will he make it" heart-stopping moment, the love interest, the noble self-sacrifice to save other lives, and more. Everything established in the Poseidon Adventure is here.
From a purely narrative perspective, the movie borders on the nonsensical. Emmerich knows this and eases us into the plot. First we're told an ice age won't happen for thousands of years. Then we're told it will happen in a few years. Then in months. Then in weeks.
Of course, the ice age is integral to the plot and thus can be forgiven. Less forgivable is the extremely fragile all-terrain vehicles that collapse into uselessness when they bump into something, or Jack happening to be present just as the ice shelf falls into the ocean, or the unbelievable (albeit dramatic) effects of the killer cold snaps, or an ocean liner floating through the watery streets of New York. And then there are the wolves.
My wife has a degree in environmental conservation and derived some smug satisfaction from The Day After Tomorrow until the wolves showed up. To elaborate: wolves escape from a local zoo in New York City. They just happen to end up on the aforementioned ocean liner, where our heroes are struggling to find food. Then the wolves act in decidedly cinematic fashion, attacking everyone in sight, even to run away from the food to chase Sam.
I've written a role-playing game book on arctic survival and I'm currently writing a book about werewolves, so I know what I'm talking about when I tell you that wolves would never act like this. It's a slap in the face to the environmentalists who were cheering throughout the movie. Bad Emmerich, bad!
The actors are noticeably visible beneath their cold weather clothing ("How can I emote if no one can see my face?!"). And that's probably a good thing, because there's not very much for any of them to do. The always-lovely Sela Ward plays Dr. Lucy Hall, Jack's wife, and there's a heart-wrenching scene where she must decide if she will stay behind to comfort a child who cannot be easily evacuated. That would be Disaster Flick Plot Device #5.
Gyllenhal carries much of the movie as an ingenious teenager, but he seems a little too old for the pretty young thing (a cute AND smart Emmy Rossum) he pursues. Jake is six years Emmy's elder and no amount of makeup can conceal the difference. Everyone else is a stereotype, although the clichés have evolved somewhat (we now get the "Erkel Guy").
The Day After Tomorrow is an amusing and sardonic attack on American conservative politics and First World excesses. As a cohesive tale of global warming, it is less successful. As a fun disaster flick, it's a serviceable entry in a long list of movies that are otherwise content to blow things up.
posted by talien | 9:07 AM
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