Director Roland Emmerich likes to destroy things in his films. He likes to do so in fun popcorn flicks, like he did in STARGATE and INDEPENDENCE DAY. I haven’t seen his GODZILLA, but I know he destroyed things (almost his career I think). But when he tries to get serious, we get the awful THE PATRIOT (aka BRAVEHEART IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR).
With THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, Emmerich takes on the serious topic of global warming, which allows him to destroy things with natural disasters this time. The film isn’t a message film, but if it makes at least one person read some real science about global warming than it was worth it. So what it comes down to is, if you like to see things get destroyed than you’ll like this film.
Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid, FREQUENCY) is climatologist, who warns a conference of world leaders about the potential for a new Ice Age. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney… I mean… Becker (Kenneth Welsh, MIRACLE) disregards the report, because it would cost too much money. Well, the weather will prove him wrong. There are a lot of little dramas that fill out the running time of the film, but the main story has Jack Hall’s son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal, DONNIE DARKO) stuck in New York after tidal waves flood the city and then it begins to freeze over. The storm is quickly getting worse and eventually will get to the point where a person will freeze instantly if they venture outside. So Jack sets out to drive then walk to New York to beat the storm’s dropping temperature and save his son.
If you do not have the ability to turn off your common sense at this point, the film will not work at all. Frankly, the message of this film is only a set-up for some great special effects and action sequences. At one point, tornadoes destroy Hollywood and there is something morbidly fascinating in watching my place of work whipped off the map by a giant twister.
What makes this popcorn fare work better than say TWISTER is that it’s grander and less hokey in a “bad guys don’t drive black SUVs” way. The man versus nature element of this film works and the filmmakers made the right choice of not adding in some silly trumped up conflict between the human characters. So on a simple level the survival tale works even if it’s implausible like outrunning a temperature drop that will freeze you instantly. But there’s something ironically wonderful about seeing thousands of Americans trying to illegally cross the border into Mexico. The film is grand escapism.
However, the film did veer into too much fantasy when the VP Dick Cheney… I mean… Becker goes on TV and admits that he was wrong about global warming. Now come on that’s a bit too much.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
