Ahoy, squirts. Quint here with a gushing review of Roland Emmerich's upcoming summer blockbuster disaster flick THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. It sounds like Emmerich has made a movie with all the fun of ID4, but given it a new structure. I, for one, can't wait. This movie looks like bundles of fun! Enjoy, but beware of some spoilers below!!!
Hi Harry
Thought you might want another impression on Emmerich's latest disaster epic "The Day After Tomorrow".
This isn't a review as my english is pretty poor and I don't claim to be a reviewer. You might call me a plant (I'll accept that) cause I wouldn't mind if my thoughts helped proppel this baby in to box office heaven, cause if it gives Roland enough money too produce more like what I just saw not long ago, I'll be a happy little rodent.
To the movie, minor spoilers ahead:
The intro sequence takes place on one of the polar capes and includes a mile deep crack that breaks apart a piece of ice the size of Texas. Unfortunately for a small group of scientists they have chosen to place themselves right on top of this crack. This is the first glimpse of what's to come effectswise later on in the movie. The cracking sound that preceedes the actual opening is deafening and I can't wait to see it in a bigger auditorium with better sound. The way the camera goes higher and higher revealing the true size of the ice breaking is simply stunning! Only one of the scientists make it out alive and his info is what makes the alarm bells go off at Prof. Rabson's (Ian Holm) office.
This info is taken to Dennis Quaid's character Jack (something) whos quickly realizes that his worst nightmare has started and at a even faster rate than he ever dreamed of. He can't get a hold of his son and he finds it even harder to get the president's staff realize the imminent threat. It's really played out a lot like the beginning of Independance Day although this time it seems a bit more convincing. One of the things I will critisize is that they jump to the actual disaster too fast. All the stuff that is played out at the Pentagon/white house is really exciting ad I wish we had more stuff like this, more buildup, before the storm strikes. One of the big arguments is whether or not the United States should invade parts of Latin America in order to accomodate the vast number of US refugees. There should have been a bit more focus on these areas. Also the personal struggle of Dennis Quaids frustrating attempts to get a hold of his son and him being ordered to stay in Washington as an advisor could have been fleshed out a bit more. All the "small" stuff in this movie really works well (surprisingly) I just feel there should have been a bit more before the diasaster.
But enough of the "small" stuff, this movie is also about the "big" stuff or should I say "the jawdroppingly gigantic shit" cause the hype that has surrounded the effectswork in this movie truly lives up to the finished product and well beyond.
I love watching landmarks getting smashed, crushed, exploded whatever, and this film ups the ante in this area. I believe we get treated to around 40-45 minutes of pure destruction intercut with small scenes of personal survival. We have seen a lot in the trailers and yet we haven't seen shit! Los Angeles is "attacked" by a shitload of small and big tornadoes and just as we think it can't get any crazier they all join together and form a superwedge several kilometers wide. In one scene this tornado swallows a filled stadium after it has been bombarded with debris in form of cars and trucks.
Before we move on to the destruction of N.Y. we a treated to a series of worlwide disasters involving freezing, lightning (about a thousand a second), Hails that destroys entire cities, blizzards etc.
Then it's time for N.Y. In the beginning Jack's son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is travelling to New York and he actually gets a taste of the storm that will hit him in New York a few hours later. He is with a couple of friends attending some seminar when the storm hits New York. Again we are not given enough time before the disaster to set up the characters.
The destruction and "freezing" of New York was one long case of boosegumps for me personally. In the trailers we only see the tidal waves from far away but the scenes in the movie when we see it from the people's point of view are simply chilling. In one scene we have a bunch of office employees who without warning have their entire building engulfed in water. On their side the windows are still holding up to the pressure and they watch terrified as bodies,cars, horses, busses etc. float by. suddenly the windows collapse and they too perish. There are many scenes like this and the visual effects are so photorealistic.
After the storm settles, the movie shifts gear and turns into a tale of personal surviaval and a fathers quest to find his son. The danger is far from over though. Instafreezes that are very local but that freeze anything down to abzolute zero and that causes entire scyscrabers to fall, and wildlife like polar bears and wolfs keep our heroes busy on their journey.
The acting is convincing and I like all the actors/actresses in this movie, I'm not great at analyzing dialogue so I'll refrain from taht, but the dialogue in this film worked on me, and I felt quite emotional at times. But again, I'm a sucker for this kind of thing. What lacked in small stuff and character development we get more of in the post-disaster part of the flick and we don't get a fullblown actionpacked ending, but I love it that way.
This movie compare very little to the rest of the disaster flicks I've seen in recent years. Yopu realize pretty fast that there can be no happy ending to this movie and we are spared of the "mad-groups-of-scientists-racing-to-save-the-planet" plot that we saw in Armageddon, Deep Impact, The Core, Independence day and you name them. The race in this one is a father's race to find his son.
The drama works very well and the action/effects will stand up to anything released this year in my opinion. All in all a thought-provoking, no happy ending disasterflick.
9 out of 10 from me
If you post this you can refer to me as the Mad Rodent
