THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (2004) 2 stars out of 4. Starring Dennis Quaid, Jake
Gyllenhaal, Ian Holm, Sela Ward, Emmy Rossum, Dash Mihok, Kenneth Welsh,
Austin
Nichols, Jay O. Sanders and Perry King. Screenplay by Jeffrey Nachmoff and
Roland Emmerich. Story by Roland Emmerich. Directed by Roland Emmerich.
Rated
PG-13.
It doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
Nor does it take a movie genius to know how The Day After Tomorrow goes.
A torrent of clichés inundates audiences in this ecological-environmental
disaster feature, which has as much scientific authenticity as an old
Flash
Gordon serial.
From the lone voice paleoclimatologist whose warnings are ignored until
it is
too late, to the various noble sacrifices of secondary characters, The Day
After Tomorrow plays like a "best of ..." of disaster movie situations.
Don't misconstrue. The movie is fun, offering a grand buffet of worldwide
calamities: Tokyo residents are downed by giant hail stones; massive
tornadoes
nearly wipe out Los Angeles; and, best of all, a tidal wave sweeps away
the
streets of New York, then freezes turning the city that never sleeps into
a
giant popsicle.
Who could ask for anything more?
The special effects are decent, especially the gigantic cloud coverings
that
obscure most of the Northern Hemisphere. And the various floods, winds,
snowstorms and other natural disasters also provide a modicum of realism.
The Day After Tomorrow is nothing more than a big-budgeted B-movie.
This Roland Emmerich-directed three-ring circus of cataclysms, like his
earlier Independence Day, is a deluxe combo of 1950s science fiction plus
1970s
disaster flicks.
The cast really has little to do but look grim, determined or woebegone
as the
climate radically shifts around them while all they can do is sit at their
computer screens and watch helplessly.
Dennis Quaid stars as Dr. Jack Hall, the brain who predicted such an
event
could occur in perhaps 100 or 1,000 years. His one goal is to rescue his
alienated teen-age son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), from the New York Public
Library, thus proving to the young man that his father does, indeed, love
him.
Other stock characters include a dense, grouchy U.S. vice president who
pooh-poohs Hall's dire warnings about cleaning up the environment; Hall's
noble
doctor wife (Sela Ward) who remains behind with a dying boy while everyone
else
flees; a resourceful homeless dude; and the brainy young lady who Sam
loves
from afar. Of course, he can only express his feelings as death begins
pounding
at their door.
Consider this about The Day After Tomorrow. It was inspired by a book
co-authored by a radio talk show host who sees UFOs everywhere, and a
fringe
author, who claims to have been taken everywhere in UFOs.
The Day After Tomorrow will be viewed as a wake-up call by those
clamoring for
mankind to take better care of our planet and as scare-tactic propaganda
by
those who want to chop down the rain forests and drill for oil in
everyone's
back yard.
As for me, I had a good time watching this retro feature. It's kind of
cathartic watching all this happen on screen, confident that what is shown
won't happen in our lifetime. Our will it?
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette,
Ind. He
can be reached by e-mail at [email]bbloom@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
or
at
[email]bob@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bloom's reviews also can be found at the
Journal and Courier Web site: [url]www.jconline.com[/url]
Other reviews by Bloom can be found at the Rottentomatoes Web site:
[url]www.rottentomatoes.com[/url] or at the Internet Movie Database Web
site:
[url]www.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Bob+Bloom[/url]
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