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The Day After Tomorrow
Have you ever been offended by a movie? I'm not talking about just being mad because a movie sucked, I'm talking offended. When the closing credits ran I felt like Elmer Fudd with a carrot shoved in the barrel of my gun. I've been here before.
The plot in a nutshell is a brilliant scientist knows how the world will end based on all kinds of cheap TV movie of the week style science. Of course the powers that be don't believe him until it's almost too late. So many disasters ensue including tornadoes in Los Angles, massive flooding in New York, and finally a massive temperature drop that instantly freezes anyone outside. Anyone inside with no heat but a small fire will survive it oddly enough.
Dennis Quaid, in his most passionless flat performance to date, plays the brave scientist who has decided to trek to New York through the deadly frozen tundra that is the United States to save his son. Since there are no airlines to take and no means of major travel, what he plans to do when he gets to his son is anyone's guess. but he must get to him because he has neglected him to much in the past because of his work! Jake Gyllenhaal plays the brilliant son who is of course infatuated with a girl on his scholastic team but he is to shy to tell her.
The idea of the film is just so implausible. A major climate change occurs in a matter of a few days and is gone in a day. Don't get me wrong I can enjoy popcorn science fiction as much as the next guy but this movie is insulting in its lack of originality. The movie is promoted as "from the creators of Independence Day!" Now I know why nobody's getting sued. If this movie were made by someone other than those filmmakers they could sue for plagiarism. As it stands director Roland Emmrich just remade Independence Day, his own movie, and replaced the alien invasion with a natural disaster.
Maybe the makers The Core have got a shot at a law suit because it's almost identical to that film as well. How many times must we see the brilliant scientist predict the tragedy, get rejected, then get brought in to tell the President what he should do, then have to face some personal impending tragedy that just barely manages not to really be a tragedy? How many times must we have a disaster movie where the President makes his patriotic speech near the end of the film to rally the American people into rebuilding their destroyed country (Deep Impact, Independence Day)? How many times to we have to watch a bunch of smart assed scientists or others we don't really like give up the ghost and kiss their asses good bye (Armageddon, Deep Impact)? This particular aspect of this story was handled amazingly well in Titanic.
What could have been interesting is to have these disasters occur and focus on the common man and his struggle to survive in the face of a situation he can't control or understand. instead of focusing on the one and only scientist who knows the answer and his struggle to be heard. The way to ground these fantastic type of stories is to find a way to humanize them, to let the viewer identify with characters in the film. but this takes character development not drawing a silhouette on the screen that represents the same stereotypical characters we've been seeing in these films for a dozen years or more. When you take a look at "the original" Time Machine, or god for bid pick up the book, it's obvious that what transpires is impossible but the character's motivations are real and they help ground the story.
Maybe The Day After Tomorrow would have been better if they had simply centered the story around Dennis Quaid's character going to save his son. Let him have a ton of near misses and run into some amazing set pieces along the way but keep the story focused and grounded to the characters. But they would have to give Quaid's character a plan once he reached his son other than just finding him. I kept thinking to myself what the hell is he gonna do once he gets there? Who does he think he is, Superman?
The worst sequence for me in the film is when the group of surviving kids is literally chased through the library they are hold up in by the temperature change. It's just so ridiculous. Oh by the way the lame romance that is "forced" in the film is boring and cardboard due to the fact that, well it's poorly written, and the two main players have about as much chemistry Bill and Hillary on two for one lap dance night at the Booby Bungalow.
With this film and Van Helsing kicking off the summer '04 movie season I don't have high hopes for the rest of the month. I'll be happy to clean my movie going pallet with Spider-man 2 or the new Harry Potter film. In case I didn't make it clear this movie isn't good, in fact it's horrible. It's actually worse than Van Helsing because it's better to try and bring something new to the screen and fail rather than to strive to the exact same movie with each one you direct. Curse you Roland Emmrich, you took two hours of my life I'll never get back.
1/10
-Stephen Lackey |
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The Day After Tomorrow
Directed by: Roland Emerich
Staring: Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal
Review: 1/10
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