Thursday, 19 May 2005
The Day After Tomorrow
When did it happen? No one knows! Why did I write it? Nobody cares! Movie reviews from the past!
(everything after this point was written on 13 June 2004, plenty of editing fix-'er-uppers right now)
There are some movies that you see because of what you know about them. Others, you see despite what you know. In the case of The Day After Tomorrow, it's a little of both.
The opening doesn't pull any punches - well, except for one, and it's a sucker punch at that. Walking in to see a disaster action film, knowing that you're walking in to see a disaster action film, why would you be surprised to see the disaster in full bore? Well, you wouldn't. Except that the opening moments of the film aren't the disaster, but "just" some little disaster to whet your appetite. Thanks guys, didn't really need that, but thanks.
Of course, it's not the mini-disaster that grated on me so. It's not the pointless - and now stereotyped to the point of being mundane - act of heroics on the part of the main character (Dennis Quaid) to save inanimate objects whose value was only tenuously established. No, it's the big fucking crack that just so happens to split the camp down the middle. If you had any doubts that the director was going to paint with a fine brush, the first five minutes of the film dispel them. With a big fucking crack down the middle of the screen.
Okay, it might seem like I'm being unfair. But remember, it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that. What else can you expect in a universe governed by the likes of Perry King, where rich, bratty, prep-school hunks are actually selfless romantics? It's a world gone mad, people, mad!
The special effects come hard and heavy - and thank god for that, because the characterizations are sub-par every step of the way. It's really too bad, considering the actors present (Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ian Holm). But maybe it's unavoidable. In a world devastated by nature, who really does have time to worry about the actual intricacies of human drama?
Do we really need to wonder why Quaid and his wife can get together so easily after what certainly were irreconcilable differences for divorce? Nah. Or that the fact that his kid is stuck above some magical line (literally, considering the so-named felt-tip marker used to draw it) sway the hardened beliefs of a heretofore uncaring Vice President of Grinch-like proportions? Nope. Or why, for the love god, why is Perry "Riptide" the square-jawed President of the United States? It's a world gone mad, people, mad!
On that note, can we just dwell for a second on some plot points? Thanks. Like, why bother bringing up an injured leg (twice!) that turns life-threatening if you're not going to bother showing the the actual treatment? Just shoot up with some potion (damn the dosage), and everything's fine? Duh, OK! (What, the threat of everyone starving to death wasn't worth the risk to go outside?)
Or how about that little brother in Philadelphia, forgotten as soon as mentioned and only brought up in a later line that was obviously added thanks to a committee script review? No need, he just was there (or not, as the case was) to show that, gosh - rich kids have big hearts too! Or how about the aforementioned Vice President, President by the end of the film (of a country that exists indirectly, but only barely so, thanks to a total debt-forgiveness package for Latin America)?
Didn't anyone else want to scream, "manipulative wanker!" when he mentioned "surviving heroes" or somesuch? Like these half-dozen people - all following the advice of the world's expert on what's happening - are supposed to be representative? Oh, it's okay though: when the flotilla of helicopters arrive, why, there's a whole scad of survivors in New York City! (Though these other people only appear after we're sure our heroes are safe and sound.)
Let's hope there are other world-class paleontological climate experts braving sub-arctic cold to rescue their lovestruck sons in other cities. Otherwise, I don't know if that Vice Pres - sorry, President - will send you a search-and-rescue party. Just stick it out, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Detroit and any other major northern city. Those dozen helicopters will be making their way to you in about, oh, the time for a feel-good press conference from your new pompous ass in power.
And how about that kid with cancer, whose treatments weren't working, whose eyesight was all but gone, and who couldn't be moved except by ambulance (presumably for the electronic equipment)? What, didn't he have his plate full already before the director went and "lost" his parents? I mean, for a feel-good ending, "I'm alive, but blind, dying and newly orphaned at the age of eight" just doesn't seem to measure up for me. Or maybe I'm missing something.
And on a factual note: Spain is only warm thanks to the Atlantic current. You know - that one little scientific explanation that almost made sense and lays the base for the whole plot? So, why are Spain and Portugal still basking frost-free when both are about as far north as New York? And for that matter, wouldn't you sort of expect the southern hemisphere to at least be affected? (I'm not a climate expert here, I'm just throwing that out.) I know it's those dirty Third World nations (and their skanky neighbors, the Aussies and Kiwis), but weren't we supposed to be treating them with some newfound respect? So how about a little equal time in the disaster department?
Do I sound bitter? I guess so. Whatever. Sarcastic, for sure. In my mind, people shouldn't get in the way of a good disaster flick. And for some reason, they just keep popping up all over the place.
On the other hand, so do the special effects. Apparently, the filmmakers avowed playing fast and loose with scientific facts in order to cram in as many natural disaster-type storms as possible. Well, it seems to have worked. Aside from the pretty stupid gazing-from-space moments, I liked it.
It's pretty hard to create visceral fear from a cold front, but these guys did it. Major tornadoes in Los Angeles? Got 'em (and, in true horror-flick style, they kill the illicit lovers). Hailstones striking down husbands dallying at the corner bar with the full wrath of an angry entity? Check. Tidal waves worthy of Godzilla's original rise from the ocean? Yup.
But it's the cold that really was the star. No, seriously. It's pretty damn cool (no pun intended, though recognized) to see people frantically trying to escape from some invisible cold front, descending with the unstoppable menace of Dracula (my favorite evil archetype). Watch out, Billy! The air just went still, you're about to die!
Now people outside of Minnesota know that balmy state's residents feel - oh, just every February. Come to think of it, maybe there were plenty of survivors. The Minnesotans and their Wisconsin cheesehead brethren were probably out ice fishing and making snowmen in what would become the world's longest snow day. Taking it all in, all to be retold as the whopper-of-a-winter tale to top all whopper-of-a-winter tales - starting with "Cold? Nah, not as cold as '96!"
On a lighter note, I see that "fair and balanced" Fox News was omnipresent for the disaster. Overlooking the results of the "synergies" of the media conglomerations and product placement (global Presidential addresses on the Weather Frickin' Channel?!), I do have to agree with this vision of the world. Truly, if ever I want to be scared shitless and my intelligence simultaneously mocked ("Oh man, I hope there's no one in that Porsche that just got crushed! But wow, was that cool!"), there would be no better network suited to cover the onset of the Apocalypse than Fox News.
I guess it's hard to fault a film that is marketed as the summer's first blockbuster (don't get me started on that concept) and which has a bunch of cool computer special effects. Plus, you get to feel all good and humanity-is-my-brother and stuff.
On the other hand, I'd expect The Day After the Day After Tomorrow to reveal the newly emigrated northern neighbors relegating those annoying Third World people to their "proper" place: waxing our floors and chauffeuring our cars. Because there sure doesn't seem to be anything but condescending "gratitude" expressed by any of the characters who even bother.
2 / 5 - love the effects, but what a super bummer that the plot views humanity in such a dim, cynical light
(Or maybe that was the anti-videotaping warning at the start, reminding us that we're nothing but a teeming mass of potential thieves in the eyes of the strictly benevolent studios who bestow upon us their quality "content".)