The Day After Tomorrow

There are things here that could be considered spoilers. Consider yourselves warned.

It pretty much was everything the reviewers said it was. Not the world-beater that Independence Day was, but worth the money, I thought.

I want to put in a word for the good old-fashioned disaster movie. I think Roland Emmerich is a current master. He knows how to wow you, and how to connect the wows with enough story that you stay interested. Not necessarily high quality story, mind...it's got a bunch of cliches and the characters are kind of predictable. But he knows how to tug heart strings, you bet. The touching and tender moments and The Wife{tm} and myself holding hands and choking back a tear. Really.

The money shots were the thing. They were, (1) early on, the destruction of Los Angeles buy a swarm of tornadoes. A triumph of special effects. And, in a clever play, one character watches his boss buy the farm on (what else but) FOX-TV, just before getting killed himself. We don't directly see the deaths but thier immediacy is convincingly communicated by the sequence of events. The one character just menched dies when the biggest tornado tears off the face of the downtown LA skyscraper that he's in. The only apparent survivor is a Hispanic janitor, who just happens to be behind just that next wall. The look on his face as we pull back to see him, insectlike amidst the wasteland of downtown LA is priceless.

Then, (2), the ongoing destruction of New York by wave and then ice. An apparent storm surge nearly submerges the Statue of Liberty on its way into New York Harbor. Waves swamping the boardwalks and urban blocks, quickly covering the traffic choked streets.

The FX quality of DAT is way above that of ID4 which, while memorable, looks fakey in places; I've never been to NY but even I know that there is no street that goes right up to the front door of the Empire State Building.

More pluses:

Dennis Quaid. I've always liked Dennis Quaid. And, with his role in this movie that means Emmerich has had both the Quaid brothers employed at one time or another.

Jake Gyllenhaal. I can see why he's an up and comer. I believed his act.

Emmy Rossum. She's a cutie. Love those eyes. Really evocative.

Ian Holm. What's not to like? He brings class to whatever he touches. And his final scene with his two colleagues at the doomed weather station in Scotland was eloquent of final defiance against the odds.

Dash Mihok. Sam Hall's (Jake Gyllenhaal) nerdy brainiac friend and Decathlon teammate. Best line in the movie: whilst attempting to make a radio work during being holed up in the New York Public Library, a policeman suggests that maybe he should get some help. After listing the genius clubs he's president of, including the electronics club, he suggests that "If there's a bigger nerd in the place, please point him out." The officer wisely leaves him to his devices.

I liked the movie. I'd watch it again, and I'll be looking forward to place it on my DVD shelf next to great F/X epics like ID4, The War of the Worlds and such like that.

Got some more mulling in the vein of distaster flicks, but that's for another entry. This one's gone on long enough.