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MOVIE CRITIQUE:
Ever once in a while we all get a taste for junk food. Likewise we all like to go to the local county carnivals as a summer
event of long standing tradition. We love the sights and sounds of the carnival and we play all the games even though we long
ago have learned that they are rigged and that we are almost always guaranteed to come out a loser. Chalk it up as part of
the cost of having the experience.
And who can visit a carnival without sucking on a snow cone or eating cotton candy? Somehow, it all seems to taste so
good for that moment under the warm summer sun that we indulge, perhaps even overindulge, ourselves with this stuff.
And then we try all the rides. The Tilt-a-whirl used to always get me. And if not that ride, then the Wild Mouse. I would
soon be dizzy and woozy from spinning around so much. Most of the time I was pretty sick by the time I got home.
We never learn as we will always go back again the next summer and the one after that to do the same stupid things. We
all seem to have an inexhaustible proclivity for junk food and junk sensory perceptions and we somehow forget the sickness
that always occurs soon afterwards.
It's just like this with summer blockbuster movies. In a way, this is one of the reasons that drove me to be come a movie
critic, first for the members of my extended family and then much later for all of you.
I was so mad after seeing "Twister" in 1996 that I walked out of the theater swearing to my wife that I would
never again waste my money seeing a movie that displayed $100 million dollars worth of special effects built around a 50 cent
story and accompanied by dialogue that sounded like it was written by a high school lit class.
I have generally kept my promise, but every once in a while I make the same mistake in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Hope truly springs eternal, and I always hope that this or that new summer blockbuster movie will have a decent story with
its characters realistically portrayed.
Sadly, in "The Day After Tomorrow," it is once again not to be.
The special effects are awesome, but, to be honest about it, there are just too many of them. This would have been a better
movie with far less special effects. I suffered from sensory overload. First the ocean levels rise from the collapsing of
the giant Arctic ice shelves into the sea. And then a tidal wave swamps New York City (but, surprisingly enough, no where
else!). And then a frigid hurricane drops temperatures down to 50 to 100 degrees below zero. The final piéce de resistance
is when the eye of these cold hurricanes pass over, because then the temperatures on the ground will drop even more, down
to hundreds of degrees below zero.
The disasters in this movie are promoted as being world wide in scope, but the story locks in on a single family trapped
between Washington, D.C. and New York City. I guess that the other millions of people of different nationalities and different
races around the world don't count for very much when it comes to a white bread Caucasian family in the United States. The
others are all dying too, but so what? There must be no story there...
Relatively good summer blockbuster movies from past years like "The Towering Inferno"(1974) and "The Poseidon
Adventure"(1972), for example, have multiple story lines and deal with multiple familial and relationship differences
and how each reacts to the tragedy du jour. Blockbuster event movies of today have pared down the characterizations and upped
the special effects with the sad result that there is now much more "cinematic eye candy" to see, but the human
element ends up being gradually phased out so that there is less story there. Much less story.
This trend is worrisome. One of these days a movie will only consist of special effects. I can't see a movie that is 100%
special effects without being bored out of my mind. "The Day After Tomorrow" is pushing the limits of sensory overload
to the detriment of any logical, cohesive characterizations that end up making this movie amount to little more than that
of minor passing interest.
Worse yet, "The Day After Tomorrow" suffers from junk science run amok and then follows that with situations
that strain credulity to the point of just not being believable. This movie simply cannot be experienced if you leave any
part of your brain hooked up. I would suggest several drinks beforehand, and then you can at least laugh at the silliness
of it all.
Dr. Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) is a research climatologist working in Antarctica when a huge, seemingly bottomless, crevasse
opens up right outside their laboratory. How convenient. It seems that the ice shelf upon which the research station is mounted
has split off from the continent due to global warming.
Hall sees the ice bores stored across the crevasse, so naturally he has to jump the eight feet necessary to rescue the
fruits of his climatological research. Coming back, he has to jump over the same crevasse, only this time with an armful of
ice bores in their tubes. Of course, he doesn't make it and he hangs there for a few precious seconds on the lip of the crevasse
until he is rescued by his fellow scientists.
Quicker than you can say, "Drop that visual!," Hall is back in Washington, D.C., telling everybody that disaster
is looming due to the global warming. He makes this claim to a very reluctant Vice President Becker (Kenneth Welsh), who look
suspiciously like our Vice President Cheney. Becker does not believe him, of course, so he is one of the bad guys. But, hey!
Don't tell us Greens that we didn't warn you! I am sure that Becker also came from Halliburton before being elected...
Now, the more logical among us might think that this means that the low lying areas of the world, like ocean atolls and
islands along with much of Florida, will soon be under water. But, Roland Emmerich, who wrote this mess of a story, must have
decided that that wasn't an exciting enough of a visual, so he had to come up with something better.
Emmerich created the novel concept that the ice shelf crashing(?) into the ocean changed the weather enough so that a
new ice age is immediately being formed. Don't ask me how he arrived at this concept, because I can't figure this out.
But, it gets worse from a scientific point of view. Emmerich has this climate change occurring in nano seconds, geologically
speaking, as giant weather vortexes form all around the Northern Hemispheres (only!) which suck down frigid air from the Troposphere
that is hundreds of degrees below zero. There is one over Russia, one over Scotland, and, of course, one over New York City.
They are spaced like climatological wheels all around the world, and when the "eye" of the vortex passes over an
area, the super frigid atmosphere from the Troposphere drops down and freezes everything in sight.
A nice idea, but not scientifically possible. The reason the Troposphere is so cold is that the molecules of air this
far above the Earth are spaced so far apart that they cannot hold and store any thermal energy from the Sun. We most likely
could not even experience the cold temperature of these molecules because we would be much more affected by the near vacuum
conditions in which they exist.
But Emmerich has decided that this cold can be brought down to Earth and freeze everything in sight. This can't happen.
What would happen is that pulling these few molecules down to Earth would be compressing them together in a manner much like
a heat compressor with the result that the friction created by this action would create HEAT, NOT COLD!
The air of the Troposphere would actually warm up were this to happen, so the entire premise of this movie is based on
a scientific falsehood.
Well, that being settled, back to what little there is of the story in this movie. Of course, Dr. Jack Hall is separated
from his wife, Dr. Lucy Hall (Sela Ward), but they are very professional about this and still remain quite friendly. And,
surprise, surprise! They have a son, Sam Hall (Jake Gyllenhaal), who is a college student who just happens to be estranged
from his dad. He is supposed to be very intelligent, but he suffers from a lack of motivation and, as a result, his grades
aren't very good. Gee, could we be any more formulaic about this family?
So the new Ice Age hits and dear Dr. Lucy Hall stays behind in her hospital in Washington, D. C., as one of her cancer
patients, a young child of about 10 or 12, has been left behind. How sweet. Tugs at the heart strings, doesn't it?
Of course, we just know that one of the Halls will be trapped in New York City when the Tropospheric vortex hits. Right
on, you guessed it! Sam Hall has traveled to New York City to be in a collegiate quiz show because he is in love with a fellow
quiz show participant, Laura Chapman (Emmy Rossum). And, wouldn't you just know that in the middle of this world wide disaster,
the competing collegiate team will have a buff preppy student who takes a shine to her as well?
So the Ice Age hits North American, and everything above a line from Washington, D.C., through St. Louis, to San Francisco
will be frozen solid. Fifteen feet of snow is promised, which would make any trips anywhere impossible. So what does Dr. Hall
decide to do? Why, take a quick drive from Washington, D.C., north to New York City to rescue his stranded son.
But he has a four wheel drive flat bed truck for this attempt. Right. Like a truck of this or any other size will be able
to plow through 15 feet of snow in temperatures that are presumed to be about 80 to 100 degrees below zero. This is before
the Troposphere drops down with its temperatures promised to be hundreds of degrees below zero. How stupid is this? Oh, plenty
stupid.... About as stupid as you can get.
Oh, I forgot about the zoo in Central Park. Somehow, in this zoo it is only the wolves which escape captivity as the ice
age starts. Now, another (admittedly) great visual is a ship washed up by a tidal wave into the middle of the street next
to the New York City Library. Sam and his friends on the collegiate team decide to make a run for medicines (Penicillin) that
should be located in the ship's hospital room.
Now, what would it take to guess that those wolves with about 10 million frozen bodies to munch on all over New York City
somehow decide that there must be better pickings inside this stranded ship just as Sam and his friends are searching for
the clinic?
And what do you suppose that they will be leaving the ship just as the eye of the vortex is dropping just like the New
Year Eve's ball, and at about the same pace, so there is a very "reel" fear that they might be turned into frozen
popsicles?
And what disaster film starring New York City would be complete without a visual of the Statue of Liberty? There she is,
all frozen up and ice covered with a ship stranded in ice next to her. It was dejá vu all over again. I thought for a moment
that I was back in "The Planet of the Apes"(1968) and that it was Charlton Heston once again looking up at the statue,
only this time in the dead of winter.
But, no, it's Dr. Jack Hall and his one surviving friend who have decided to leave their car behind and hike into the
City on the ice in order to find the Library with their GPS PDS. And this with the Tropospheric vortex due to drop at any
minute. Well, why not? It is almost a balmy spring day with temperatures a mere 100 degrees below zero. The logic of this
totally eludes me other than that the Staten Island ferry doesn't happen to be running at the time.
Also in "The Day After Tomorrow" the grand politic statement is made that all the populations (us Caucasians,
of course), have to flee south to warmer countries, the warmer THIRD WORLD countries. So after centuries of our exploiting
these Third World countries they magnanimously decide to provide shelter and sustenance to all of us reverse immigrants. This
is truly touching to have the shoe placed on the other foot. Political pay back time, and no thoughts of revenge, as millions
of us pour across the border into Mexico and other countries.
This will always be a point of personal preference, but I do not find Dennis Quaid to be a credible action hero. There
is a depth to his character that does not fit the image of a two dimensional action figure. He is an actor who has an edge
to him that is much better suited to more intelligent movies, like that of his role as a still in the closet homosexual in
"Far From Heaven"(2002).
Likewise, for Jake Gyllenhaal who plays a young man suffering from hidden mental anguish in films like "Moonlight
Mile"(2002) and "The Good Girl"(2002). He is more convincing than Dennis Quaid in this movie, but that doesn't
say very much.
Back in New York City, the final straw came when the ship stranded near the Statue of Liberty somehow moved in one scene
after the other even though it was locked in the ice.
Its a minor point, really, in this grand silliness of a movie, but it couldn't pass without comment. I mean, if you are
going to be stupid about one thing, you might as well be stupid about everything.
Roland Emmerich, please go back to directing. And anyone who espouses the Green causes, please don't hitch your political
star to this absolute mess of a movie. This is truly cinematic eye candy without a clear thought in its pretty little head...
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MOVIE SYNOPSIS:
Dr. Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), a scientist specializing in climatology, and his associates are working out on the Antarctic
ice shelf when a strange roar is heard. They all come out of their stations to see what is happening when a giant fissure
opens up in the ice shelf right before them. Jack heroically, but foolishly, risks his life by jumping across the widening
crevasse to rescue the ice bore samples on the other side. Weighted down by the subjects of their research, he is not successful
in his leap back to his crew. He dangles on the lip of the crevasse for a few precious seconds before he is pulled to safety
by his team members.
Quickly returning to Washington, D.C., Jack is soon arguing with Vice President Becker (Kenneth Welsh) and other members
of the military and industrial establishment that all hell is going to break loose from this global warming. He feels that
the collapsing ice shelf is only the beginning of what might happen. But Vice President Becker slams him down as he refuses
to broadcast a nationwide security alarm based only on Hall's scientifically based suppositions.
There are a few quiet moments in our nations' capital as Jack reunites with his ex-wife, Dr. Lucy Hall, a pediatrician
who specializes in the care for terminally ill cancer patients. She worries that an evacuation order may miss some of her
young patients as most of them are bedridden.
Jack's estranged son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), also has a reunion with his father. Even though he tests very well, Sam is
currently having problems with his grades. Of more immediate concern is his upcoming trip to New York City for a nationwide
collegiate quiz show championship. Sam is on the team, but the truth of the matter is that even though he is qualified, he
would have forgone this opportunity were it not for the fact that Laura Chapman (Emmy Rossum) is a valued member of the team
and Sam happens to be very sweet on her.
Searching the weather maps, Hall and his associates discover a strange pin wheel shaped giant storm located over Russia.
And it has an giant eye at its center, much like a hurricane, which is something that is supposed to be impossible to be happening
over dry land.
Communications continue with the international team of astronauts orbiting the earth in a space satellite, who keep sending
images of this storm back to earth on their fly overs. Analysis shows that this storm, rather than being a conveyer of heat
like a hurricane, is the exact opposite as it is a conveyer of frigid air from the high level Troposphere down to the ground.
Then a second storm is spotted over Scotland and a third one is starting to form over New York City. All of a sudden Dr.
Hall's analyses are taken much more seriously and he now gets to make his case to the President for a nationwide evacuation
to the south by everyone living north of a line from Washington, D.C., through St. Louis to San Francisco.
This evacuation order would, of course, include the population of New York City, and Jack is worried sick that his son
has just recently left for that city to participate in a collegiate quiz show competition.
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