THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Global warming launches a quick-freeze ice
age, killing billions of people. Roland Emmerich
brings us a special-effects-laden look at the human
race reeling under the havoc caused by the worst
natural disaster in 10,000 years, a super-cold
cyclonic storm that covers the face of the planet.
The story is compelling and plausible enough for
non-experts. Much like a Jerry Bruckheimer disaster
film, this film uses lots of CGI to create its
images of colossal destruction. Rating: high +1
(-4 to +4) or 6/10
Other writers' reviews I have read have compared THE DAY AFTER
TOMORROW with disaster films of the Seventies. That might not be
the best comparison. Most of those films killed off a few hundred
people at most. They destroyed a mere ****p, a tiny skyscraper,
maybe one island. THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW might better be called a
super-catastrophe film in which nature kills maybe a third or a
half the human population of the planet. I can think of no film
in which the forces of nature are so destructive since George
Pal's 1951 film WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE. Indeed, some of the scenes
of THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW are just updated versions of scenes from
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE. Each film shows Manhattan flooded by a
torrential wave. And fifty-three years actually have brought us a
better class of special effects and somewhat more believable
characters, but much stays the same. Pal, who pioneered the
special-effects-loaded catastrophe film, probably would have
thrilled to see this film. It may not be perfect, but it was what
Pal was aiming for. If THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW looks a lot like a
Jerry Bruckheimer disaster film, there is some truth to that
observation, though this concept was actually a pet subject of
Roland Emmerich's. He wrote the story on which it was based and
co-authored the screenplay.
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW opens with paleoclimatologist Jack Hall
(played by Dennis Quaid) collecting data on a polar ice shelf when
it cracks off under his feet. (This was actually a lucky guess on
the part of the filmmakers. In March 2002, just a few weeks after
this part was filmed, an Antarctic ice ledge, the Larsen B shelf,
really did break off and float out to sea. Its size, like the one
in the film, is about that of Rhode Island. Perhaps they are even
the same shelf.) This is just the first sign that global warming
has redirected the ocean currents and that change causes a new ice
age. It is not just a new ice age, which would be bad enough, but
one that comes upon us in a matter of a week or so preceded by the
worst super-storm to hit our planet in 10,000 years. Los Angeles
is hit with multiple tornadoes. One assumes that Podunk, Iowa,
was also badly hit, but the film most concerns itself mostly with
major cities. Some places columns of air at negative 150 degrees
drop from the troposphere flash-freezing people below. Soon the
destruction is planet-wide. The entire northern half of the
United States is so badly hit by the storm that it is not thought
to be worth the government's resources to even try to save them.
Experts think that perhaps this cataclysm repeats the conditions
that caused the last ice age and the best expert the scientific
community can offer on anything like what is happening is Jack
Hall. The government at first ignores Hall's warnings, then comes
to rely on them. Meanwhile Hall's son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is
trapped in the New York Public Library with his school's academic
competition team. If the students leave the building they will
freeze, if they stay they will eventually freeze anyway. Jack has
arctic experience and decides to set out from Wa****ngton D.C. in a
climatic Damnation Alley to get to his son and get him the Sam
Hall out of the frozen hell that is the northern half of the
country. Those from the parts of the country where it is still
possible, migrate south to move to the comparative warmth of Latin
America.
The film must have given a lot of frustration to cinematographer
Ueli Steiger since so many of his images had to be muted in very
dark and dismal color palate. Most disaster films are at least
colorful. This may well be the coldest and grayest disaster film
ever made. My wife pointed that Emmerich has little respect for
the street layout of Manhattan. The most bizarre image of the
film is impossible just because of the way the streets are
positioned. But then in INDEPENDENCE DAY Emmerich showed the
destruction of the Empire State Building from a non-existent side
street just to give a better view of the demolition. The scenes
of massive and powerful destruction are really the crown jewels of
this sort of film. The human stories are just the background to
hold the devastation scenes together.
There seems to be a lot of controversy as to just how possible the
scenario we see in THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. Though scientific
experts might cavil, certainly the premise feels a lot more
conceivable than the game of cosmic billiards in WHEN WORLDS
COLLIDE. And while I feel deep down that Pal's film is the better
of the two and the one that I will remember, I am hard-pressed to
say exactly why. People complain about the scientific accuracy of
this film but accept the premise of a film like SPIDER MAN. I'll
give this one a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10. With all
this cold weather, wouldn't you expect to see someone's breath
freezing?
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
2004 Mark R. Leeper
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X-RAMR-ID: 37943
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1287388
X-RT-TitleID: 1132625
X-RT-AuthorID: 1309
X-RT-RatingText: 6/10
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