| Written by John Shea,
on 02-06-2004 08:38
|
Published in : Reviews, Movies |
Take a bit of science theory, magnified greatly, mix in extremely corny dialogue and top with a ludicrous plot and you have a surprisingly entertaining movie.
  Director Roland Emmerich obviously hates New York. His aliens blew up the city's landmarks in Independence Day. His reinvented Godzilla beat up buildings, trashed the subways and violated Madison Square Garden. And now he drowns the city and for good measure, flash freezes it. I don't know what his grudge is but if I was Mayor Bloomberg, I wouldn't be taking any meetings with the guy.
Dennis Quaid stars as a paleoclimatologist who predicts a shift in ocean currents that could lead to a new ice age. He doesn't expect this to be happening any time soon though. So when it turns out to be happening next week, he's a little surprised. Suddenly it starts snowing in New Delhi (incidentally, why were visitors prepared with warm clothes for that?) and softball sized hail is pounding Tokyo into mulch. Then monster herds of tornadoes descend on and shred Los Angeles. Despite all this, Quaid can't convince the Vice President (who bears an eerie resemblance in appearance and manner to the current VP) that this might be a problem worth looking into.
Meanwhile, Quaid's son, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, is stuck in New York on a school trip. This involves geek jokes and a budding romance, to make sure that there are enough side plots to keep things interesting in between disasters. Quaid promises to come get him even though a huge wave has put the city a couple floors underwater and he has just predicted a storm, best described as a blizzard hurricane, that is about to slam the city. Plus, Quaid is in Washington D.C. and will have to walk there when most of the country is being evacuated in the opposite direction. Plausibility is not the movie's strong suit.
Quaid and Gylenhaal carry the brunt of the movie's acting and do fine despite laboring with groan inducing dialogue. This isn't a movie about acting though. This is a movie about special effects and they are awesome. ILM and a phalanx of smaller effects houses had a lot of fun with this. They took the time to work in the details of LA and NY so they could make a point of highlighting them as they destroyed them. It's in the same spirit as a child building an elaborate LEGO building just for the fun of knocking it down with glee.
Disaster movies are always hard to take seriously. They operate on a level of tragedy so high that it becomes impossible to relate to it. So we just laugh and yell when tons of people are getting killed onscreen. This movie wisely shies away from detailing deaths. They show just enough to give it some sense of reality but otherwise avoids the topic. That's wise as you might imagine audiences in New York could be a bit touchy about the image of mass destruction visited upon their city. This movie manages to provide mass destruction cleansed of personal loss so as to still be entertaining.
The movie thrives on little bits of humor and wit that keep amounts to a knowing wink from the filmmakers to show they know this can't be taken too seriously. The oil tanker that floats up Fifth Avenue in New York is one such touch. The irony of Americans fleeing south to Mexico and being turned away as illegal immigrants is another. Using books in a library as fuel for a fire gets a laugh when they pick up the tax code as unnecessary to keep. Making the President address the nation on the Weather Channel is another nice touch.
Roland Emmerich is always getting criticized for making movies that are full of big special effects but no thoughts. The Day After Tomorrow isn't going to change that. But this movie plows forward, oblivious to plot holes, bad dialogue, cardboard cutout characters or any other petty concerns. It has big impressive effects to show off and never forgets it. It may not be a great movie but it is fun. It's like having to eat your vegetables to get dessert. The script may make you gag but you forget about it when the good stuff shows up in front of you.
- John Shea
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