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In The Day After Tomorrow,
super nerds, and not just any super nerds, but super good-looking nerds tackle The Perfect Storm times ten plus
Independence
Day minus the aliens. It doesn’t take a nerd to figure out that equation
means a summer blockbuster enhanced with a gazillion CGI effects. Writer-director Roland
Emmerich can’t even bother with wrangling real animals, using computer substitutes
for the most part.
Climatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid, Cold Creek Manor) warns the Dick
Cheney-inspired Vice President of the United States (Kenneth Welsh) of forthcoming
environmental damage and gets a lecture on the fragility of the U.S. economy in response.
In the mean time, global warming has caused the melting of polar ice caps with the
paradoxical effect of bringing on the next ice age. Emmerich doesn’t have time for
realism, so the new ice age – preceded by snow in New Delhi, giant hailstones in
Tokyo, tornadoes in Los Angeles, and a tsunami in New York – arrives in the time span
of a few days.
Jack’s genius son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal, Donnie Darko) and his friends are in Manhattan
for an academic competition when the storm hits. They retreat into the New York Public
Library as a tidal wave crashes into the city, soon bringing about the bizarre sight of a
Russian tanker floating down Fifth Avenue. Cut to Sam’s mother and Jack’s
ex-wife (Sela Ward) in Washington D.C. caring for a young boy suffering from leukemia as
everyone else abandons him. A family of heroes they are. At one point, Sam’s
girlfriend (Emmy Rossum, Songcatcher),
is suffering from a wound that threatens amputation and Sam braves the storm to find
medicine. Next thing you know, he has to act as a decoy to lead away hungry wolves
(escaped from Central Park’s Children Zoo) from his friends.
Remember that this movie is coming from a guy who had the President of
the United States fly a jet into battle against space aliens in Independence Day
and made a Godzilla
movie in which the real Godzilla failed to show. He did find a strong cast for this one
however. Gyllenhaal’s performance is a bit half-hearted, but Quaid imbues his role
with real emotional gusto despite the one-dimensionality of this hero. Ian Holm (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship
of the Ring) appears as a scientist in Scotland for no good reason. Emmy Rossum,
who had an impressive cameo in last year’s Mystic River, has a very conventional love
interest role here. Though she has little to do, she is heavenly to look at with her large
anime eyes and lips that Angelina Jolie should envy.
The disaster movie genre is always beset by the conflict between making
the audience feel the tragedy befalling the characters and creating excitement from the
awesome spectacle causing that tragedy. In The Day After Tomorrow, spectacle wins
hands down. For a movie in which millions apparently die, the message is more “Wow,
this looks cool” (no pun intended) than “This really sucks.” Certainly
Emmerich sports an environmentalist warning/message, but the plot contrivances on display
are so silly that the theme is hard to take seriously on any rational level.
- George Wu
