Disappointing Tomorrow
I hate writing negative reviews. My philosophy has always been if it's that bad it's not worth the energy to write about it. I had to break that rule for today's column. I had to get my feelings about this screenplay out. So today behold for The Day After Tomorrow is upon us...
The Day After Tomorrow Script Review
For the first part of the nineties, Roland Emmerich was considered a promising genius. His Stargate and Independence Day were huge hits and critically well received. I adored both movies. It all went downhill from there. Godzilla was a monumental disaster and The Patriot didn't spark with audiences. The latter had a strong script (that I read and loved) but the finished product was changed for the worse. Coming off a split with long-time partner Dean Devlin, Emmerich co-wrote The Day After Tomorrow with Jeffrey Nachmanoff. Talent agency CAA packaged Emmerich and producer Mark Gordon to the highest bidder. The condition was an immediate green light for a Summer 2003 opening. The winner of that bidding marks a reunion of sort for Emmerich, as he's teamed with his ID4 studio 20th Century Fox. The screenplay I'll be reviewing today is dated May 1st 2002. Shooting begins mid-November in my hometown of Montreal.
"The Global Warming debate... is over: Global Warming is here." -- Joel Lang, Northeast Magazine.
The Countries of the world will only make peace when they are threatened by invaders from outer space. Or global climate change. -- Ross Gelbspa "The Heat is On."
 After these two quotes, the story begins in Antarctica. Professor Adrian Hall (Dennis Quaid) is studying the climate with his students there. Suddenly one of the ice shelves breaks off. Cut to four months later, the Antarctica disaster has triggered a chain of climatic events unlike anything human civilization has witnessed. Hurricane Hunter destroys the Pacific islands. Tokyo is destroyed by a hail stones the size of grapefruits. Tornadoes sweep through Los Angeles. Insane wind changes close off all commercial airlines in North America. At this point, Professor Hall is the only one who can explain the situation. His solution to the President is earth shattering: 'Move South, Evacuate everybody south of this line (San-Francisco to Washington DC)'. While America is trying to survive, Hall decides to lead an expedition to New York City to save his son's life (Jake Gyllenhaal).
I have some serious problems with this screenplay. On the plus side though, the story has an amazing visual scale. The entire northern hemisphere is being destroyed by climatic situations. It's going to be stunning to see all those landmarks and cities destroyed by hailstorm, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes etc... Kind of like when the aliens destroyed Washington DC and New York in ID4. Most of the third and fourth acts revolves around a frozen (I'm talking Ice Age here) New York City. The set design and special effects for that alone will probably be breathtaking. One thing that was briefly interesting was the geo-political accent of the story, when the President has to choose whether or not to invade Mexico, to use it as a refugee shelter. They should have played a little more into that. It kept me involved in the screenplay.
Slowly in the past three years, Dennis Quaid has managed to make a comeback. His recent turn in The Rookie brought him some critical and mass appeal. He's about to flush all of that down the toilet with this picture. His role has no payoff. He doesn't go through any character arc. He's the same person from beginning to end. His relationship with his son isn't interesting. His entire bond with his son is shown in a brief three page scene. (It involves pot smoking. Oh! How controversial!!) There are some issues about him being absent but it doesn't go anywhere from there. How does he make up for that? He eventually goes to rescue his son. Any father would do that. There's no genuine change in his character. He has no love interest either. I couldn't care less for him. I was not attached to him. For all I care, he could have died and it would have been fine. He doesn't resemble any of the ID4 leads. President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) was under heavy pressure, lost his wife and was trying to protect his country and daughter. David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) was trying to win back his ex-wife. While Captain Hiller (Will Smith) was more of a suicidal joker who still cared about his girlfriend and child. Professor Hall is nothing like these men. That's a terrible mistake.
 I won't even talk about my personal opinion of Jake Gyllenhaal. (We all remember Bubble Boy?) His Sam Hall is involved in a love triangle with Laura (Emmy Rossum) and J.D. (useless young actor to be named later). It's just a pathetic situation over all. I was barely intrigued at the opening of it. Then it became too random and cliché to really be remarkable. The writing just wasn't sharp enough. A love triangle between a woman and two men is something we have seen too commonly in big blockbusters. (Titanic, Pearl Harbor come to mind...) If you've seen one of those, you've seen them all. The only divergence with this one is it's utterly boring. I felt the writers were lazy. They could have gone a billion different ways with this but decided to pick the easy route. What's even more appalling is that FOX's other big 2003 summer blockbuster has the perfect contrary of this situation. X2 has one of the most subtle and engaging love triangles in a while now. HEY! I'm not talking about Wolverine/Jean Grey/Cyclops here. That's another column entirely. I'm talking characters around the same ages as the Tomorrow young adults. Rogue is the center of a love duel involving her boyfriend Iceman and Pyro. It's not the focus of X2 but it's well written and it struck me as really fascinating. I wanted to know what was behind everything. How did it commence? How long has Pyro been envious? What's going to happen next? The writers did a remarkable job building up the trio. The complete opposite of this dull plot in The Day After Tomorrow.
Finally, this script lacks a very essential ingredient. HUMOR! Most of the big disaster films of the past years had some really good laughs. ID4 had strong comic relief from Will Smith and Co. I remember Armageddon was quite amusing at moments. Even Godzilla had a few funny bits. The Day After Tomorrow has ZERO comedy. There's not even a tentative attempt at a comical sidekick or comic relief character. What the heck is wrong with those? In this post 9/11 world, have we lost our sense of humor? Are tragedy, mayhem and catastrophes only to be taken totally seriously now? The subject matter is way too dramatic. There's no optimistic or inspiring message in The Day After Tomorrow. I'm supposing Dean Devlin was the one writing all the jokes. I hate to say this, but his input is badly missed on this project.
I can see the future: Around April or May of 2003, Fox execs will try ritual suicidal after seeing the first test screening results. Believe me, this is one package Fox should have not opened. So much for the environment...
Stay tuned...
That's all folks...
Jean-François Allaire (aka DeadPool)
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