THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW
RATING: 6/10
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PLOT:
Something's up with the world's weather. Hail storms in Japan, snow in New
Delhi and monsoon tornadoes in Hollywood. The only person who knows the
score
is the character played by Dennis Quaid, whose son is stuck in New York
City as
the tidal wave of the millennium is about to hit. Houston...yeah, we've
got
big, BIG problems, dude!!
CRITIQUE:
Like most summer movies, I think you're likely to get out what you put
into
this film, since it basically delivers in all of the standard elements
that
we've come to expect from both "event" and "Emmerich" films and that's
plenty
of over-the-top special effect-laden disasters, plenty of characters for
whom
you're not likely to buy a "Sorry, you're dead" card upon their demise and
plenty of mindless, cheesy, frivolous entertainment value. One thing I
really
liked about this film was its extremely effective set-up, which lasts
about an
hour or so, and develops in it both the basic characters with whom we are
going
to spend time, the elements required to build the suspense to come and
obviously...the superb special effects featuring cities like Los Angeles
and
New York being decimated by ravaging climactic anomalies. One of the many
reasons that I love watching movies so much is because a decent percentage
of
films are created as "popcorn fare"-motion pictures created solely for the
purposes of allowing the viewer to travel into a whole other realm for a
couple
of hours, pretend that they're actually engaged in that world and feel
somewhat
liberated and entertained by it all. I felt that way during this film,
which
despite an admittedly less exciting second half (where do you go after a
spectacular tidal wave washes through downtown Manhattan halfway through a
movie?), still managed to keep me somewhat engaged all the way through the
end.
In fact, even before seeing this film, I wondered what the heck they could
do
in the story once the initial mayhem of the disasters had taken place, and
expecting something a lot less interesting, wasn't horribly let down by
the
film's focus on the search/rescue thereafter (although I could have done
without the whole "wolves" thing)
That said, it's still a letdown and ultimately ends on a whimper,
especially
when you consider the awesome mayhem that comes before it. Like most
Emmerich
flicks, we also get the typical over-use of characters (you don't need to
include someone from every minority group in every one of your movies),
the
crappy dialogue from time to time, the unbelievable cir***stances, the
****in'
dog (!!), the forced attempt to slip a "message" into the movie (if I
wanted a
lesson on the environment, I'd join Greenpeace) and the superfluous
attempts at
emotion (Sela Ward and her hospital kid) Some of the stuff was also
included
for the obvious sake of "exposition" to the audience, like when one of the
characters turns to Gyllenhaal and says "It's been raining like this for
three
days straight"-dude, you've been with him for the past three days...I
think he
already knows that! (Aaaaah, but the audience doesn't...I get it now) Like
most
event flicks, if you really want to pick this one apart, it's easy to do,
but
c'mon man...there's a tidal wave wa****ng over New York City...lighten up,
it's
just a movie! My personal favorite is Quaid's character braving the
****in'
snowstorm of the millennium by wearing a yellow parka, mittens and
sleeping in
a tent. Makes sense to me! All in all, I can't say that I was ever really
bored
during this film, enjoyed most of the actors, specifically Quaid who was a
nice
anchor and Gyllenhaal, who felt like a good "fit" and really loved the CGI
stuff, all of which came off really well. I've also become an instant fan
of
newcomer Emmy Rossum, who lit up the screen with her pretty smile and
glowing
cheeks. She played Sean Penn's daughter in MYSTIC RIVER.
Note: To anyone who's ever caught in a situation close to this one in real
life: listen to the dude who says his dad's a "paleoclimatologist" instead
of
the library security guard when it comes to matters about the weather.
Just
FYI.
Where's JoBlo coming from?
Armageddon (8/10) - The Core (6/10) - Deep Impact (6/10) - Fahrenheit 911
(9/10) - Godzilla (4/10) - The Peacemaker (4/10) - The Perfect Storm
(7/10) -
Stargate (6/10) - Vertical Limit (6/10)
Review Date: May 26, 2004
Director: Roland Emmerich
Writers: Roland Emmerich, Jeffrey Nachmanoff
Producers: Roland Emmerich, Mark Gordon
Actors: Dennis Quaid as Jack Hall
Jake Gyllenhaal as Sam Hall
Emmy Rossum as Laura Chapman
Genre: Thriller
Year of Release: 2004
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http://www.joblo.com/
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(c) 2004 Berge Garabedian
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X-RAMR-ID: 37890
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1284530
X-RT-TitleID: 1132625
X-RT-SourceID: 573
X-RT-AuthorID: 1021
X-RT-RatingText: 6/10
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