The
Day After Tomorrow
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhall
Written and Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Rating: 3 (out of 5)
Some crimes are so heinous, they can never be justified or forgiven. The crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer, for example, or the holocaust, or John Wayne Gacy.
And then there's "Independence Day". Released in 1996, I was forced to sit through that cinematic suppository, losing brain cells and wasting 2 hours that could have otherwise been spent helping the homeless, or reading to the elderly, or (most likely) getting hammered in a dive bar.
So, when I found out that I was going to be reviewing ID4 director Roland Emmerich's "The Day After Tomorrow", I was, naturally, filled with rage. After all, he'd already stolen 3 hours and 10 IQ points from me...how much is enough?
There was no way I was going to like this movie. In my world, there are only two phrases that fill me with more dread than "Roland Emmerich takes on aliens." Those phrases are, in descending order "Roland Emmerich takes on global warming" and "Last call".
Big deal...this is no worse than Toronto in May.
And, true to form, it's a horrible movie. Terrible dialogue, wooden characters, and about a bazillion dollars worth of CGI instead of a cohesive, logical, believable story. And yet...and don't repeat this to ANYONE, I kind of enjoyed it. I may have to turn in my "Unpaid Internet Movie Critic" license after this.
As the movie opens, we meet paleoclimatologist Jack Hall. And, like all good paleoclimatologists, he's holed up in Antarctica, studying...well, I'm not sure exactly what he's studying, but it's obviously something paleoclimatologist -y. He's a tough guy. We know this, because despite the fact that he's in Ant-fucking-arctica, him and his buddies are still sporting way too much exposed skin, which, on lesser men, would be frostbitten in less time than it takes to say "paleoclimatologist". Obviously, paleoclimatologists are the Ultimate Fighters of the science-nerd scene...tough as nails, baby.
Confidential to Dana: There. I used "paleoclimatologist" 5 times in one paragraph...and that one makes 6 overall. I told you I could do it. You owe me 10 bucks.
"Say, um, fellas? Little help here? Guys...hey guys, I could use a bit of a hand..."
So, as these guys are studying whatever stupid thing they're studying, this HUGE crack forms in the ice. Once they all wind up on the "safe" side of the split, Jack decides he's going to play hero, jump across this bottomless chasm, and pick up these cylinders. I don't know what's in them, but they sure as hell LOOK important. Now this is important...he jumps across a chasm about 3 or 4 feet wide to GET these mystery cylinders (I'm guessing they contain recipes, myself), and BARELY makes it. The chasm then widens by at least 3 or 4 more feet, and Jack jumps BACK...making it easily. Maybe the wind was with him on the return trip.
Well, some time later, Jack is at a Global Warming conference in New Delhi, India. You should SEE these conferences in real life, by the way...hookers and coke as far as the eye can see. But, in this FICTIONAL conference, Jack is trying to convince world leaders that we're looking at the dawn of another ice age if we don't clean up our act. This worries everyone except Vice President Becker of the United States (Kenneth Welsh). He says, in a nutshell, "Fuck the ice age in 100 years...I'll be dead by then, and our economy is in the shitter now." I'm guessing that, once Becker's grandkids hear these pearls of wisdom from ol' Granddad, they'll be trying to stick him in a home for insane, insensitive, world-destroying grandfathers faster than you can say "paleoclimatologist" (That's 7).
"Let's Twist again, like we did last summer..."
An aside: Vice President Becker IS Dick Cheney, and President Blake (Perry King) IS George W. Bush. They look alike, sound alike, and are portrayed as being stupid. The only way Emmerich could have been LESS subtle is by calling the characters "Vice President Chick Daney" and "President Borge Geush". Then again, he's not a guy known for his subtlety. He probably makes toast for breakfast by shooting a piece of bread off his kid's head with a flaming arrow.
Back to New Delhi for a moment...and it's SNOWING! Yes, snow is falling in one of the hottest cities in the world. And, oddly enough, this is worrying nobody. Don't worry...they'll get theirs.
Well, Jack's initial estimates of a new ice age in 100 years seem to be a TAD optimistic. The snow in New Delhi should have actually tipped him off to that, but he's a paleoclimatologist (8!), not a rocket scientist. In fact, they're all pretty much clueless to this until the North Atlantic Current (played here by itself in a daring role) starts acting up.
Whoops.
So now, this new "ice age" isn't 100 years away...it's about 6 weeks away. And BOY, does Jack have egg on HIS face!
So much for Capitol Records. I guess this whole MP3 issue really IS destroying the music industry...
So, this North Atlantic current is playing havoc on the world's weather systems. We watch as hailstones the size of canned hams (spot the reference!) fall in Japan. Then tornadoes bigger than Star Jones's appetite reduce Los Angeles to a Georgia trailer park. All of this, no doubt, causes the "wacky weathermen" of the world to have to write all-new material.
Oh, and New York, once again, is pretty much fucked.
This is particularly bad news for Jack's son Sam (Gyllenhall), who's in town for some sort of "Knowledge Decathlon" with other nerds from his school. Naturally, one of the nerds (Laura, played by the tasty Emmy Rossum) is actually a stone cold hottie, and the only reason he's joined the team in the first place. Of course, in true movie fashion, she doesn't even really know that Sam exists, and instead flirts incessantly with some rich private-school dork. Meanwhile, his best friend hangs out with them as well, if only to remind us of Urkel.
"Call Mr. Plow. That's my name. That name again is Mr. Plow."
But it's a good thing that he's there. See, New York gets hit by a WALLOP of a tidal wave, because the polar icecaps have melted. If this sounds familiar, that's because it's basically the same plot as "Waterworld". And, in true Hollywood fashion, the science behind this is suspect, to say the least. Look, folks, the world's surface is COVERED in water...something like 2/3, right? If the fucking polar icecaps melt, there won't BE tidal waves, or flooding. Worst case scenario is some beach houses will be a little closer to the water than their owners would like. And considering that I hate people with beach houses (because they're obviously richer than me), I can't say as that would upset me at all. Surf's up, douchebags.
So the kids, and a couple hundred other people, take refuge in the New York City Library (or, as they say south of the Mason/Dixon line, "Libarry"). They're generally safe, although the libarry is starting to flood somewhat...you know, with the bazillion gallons of water in there and all. But fortunately for ALL of them, they're stuck there with a paleoclimatologist's (9!) son. Even MORE lucky is the fact that, despite having no power and the failure of mobile phone networks, the PAY PHONES still work. We know this because Sam, as a paleoclimatologist's (10!) son, knows that old-fashioned pay phones draw their power directly from the phone lines. And the phone lines are apparently still hunky-dory, while the rest of New York looks like the deck of the SS Minnow 2 hours and 58 minutes into their 3 hour tour. So, he calls Daddy, who tells him not to go outside under ANY circumstances, because the weather will be so cold that they'd freeze to death.
"Dear Mr. Vernon: We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it is we did wrong..."
Dad then defies all logic, as well as his own advice, and sets out to New York from Washington D.C. to try and save him. Lesser men would perish, but, as we've established, Jack is a paleoclimatologist (11!!!!).
Look, you're not going to go to see this movie because you're looking for a science lesson. You're going to see millions of people eat tasty death. Well, you're in luck. If you can say NOTHING else about this movie, it delivers an orgy of cataclysmic destruction like you've NEVER seen before. I'm not one to get wowed by special effects, but these disaster scenes are the best you've ever seen. I was in AWE of the mayhem that Emmerich created here, and, love the movie or hate it, you will be too. In the packed theatre where I saw this screening, you could literally hear a pin drop after the disaster scenes. Morn was sitting next to me, with her jaw literally on her lap, and she's an even tougher critic than me. It's that good. I'd even go so far as to say it's almost worth the price of admission just to see these scenes on a big screen.
Of course, this means Jack Shit if there's no story to back it up. And, as he did in "Independence Day", Emmerich proves that he couldn't fashion a decent story if one bit him on the ass. I actually think he wrote most of the dialogue while sitting on the crapper, with a decent story biting him on the ass the entire time. And it appears that the decent story wound up being flushed.
"Keep looking...the script has GOT to be here somewhere."
That's not to say that there aren't some great, satirical moments. My personal favourite moment in the movie comes when millions of Americans flee south to Mexico to avoid the catastrophe. Mexico more or less closes it's borders, and we see thousands of Americans enter Mexico illegally. Sure, it's not award-winning political satire, but it's a cool, funny moment. I enjoyed it.
The characters are shit. You really don't give a rat's ass about any of them...they're minor beings, meant as filler in between eye-popping scenes of Mother Nature during a particularly bad menstrual cycle. The dialogue is pure cheese, and the performances are hammy from start to finish. There's more ham and cheese in one minute of this movie than the entire menu at the Carnegie Deli. The good thing is that it's SO bad that it's entertaining in its own way.
By the way, am I nuts? Did Dennis Quaid ALWAYS lisp, or is this something he did just for this movie?
I hope New York waited an hour after eating before the catastrophe arrived.
There are also so many subplots including minor characters that it's tough to keep them straight...or even care about them. And some of the lesser characters are just annoying tools. One in particular is a Book Nerd in the libarry who is AGHAST that the rest of the survivors would choose to burn books to keep warm. He has a terrible monologue where he holds onto a copy of a Gutenberg Bible (the first book ever printed on a printing press) and drones ON and ON about society and the importance of the written word, and blah blah blah. If I'd written this movie, THIS is the next scene I'd have written after this monologue.
INT. LIBARRY
The SURVIVORS are all eating meat ravenously, grease covering their faces and hands.
SURVIVOR
1
Wow! That Book-Nerd tastes delicious!
SURVIVOR
2
Well, it's all the Red Bull and pork rinds he's been eating. They give
him a nice, fatty, salty taste.
SURVIVOR
3
And cooking him over that burning Gutenberg Bible was a stroke of genius!
It gives him a nice, hickory-smoked flavour!
But alas, I didn't write it. Emmerich did. Although I'm hoping they shoot my scene as an extra feature on the DVD.
"Driver, I need to get to whereever the hell that tidal wave ISN'T...and there's an extra five in it for you if we survive..."
In the end, it's probably best if you just turn your brain off and allow yourself to be amazed by the technical wizardry on display. And enjoy.
Now,
if you'll excuse me, I have to go to the local libarry and see what I
need to learn to become a paleoclimatologist (12, BABY!). God knows I
could use some toughening up.
