| Overall Grade: |
C- |
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| Story: |
C |
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| Acting: |
C |
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| Direction: |
D |
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| Visuals: |
C+ |
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In the grand tradition of "JAWS 4"/GIGLI"/"ISHTAR"
by southernbo2001 (movies profile)
Aug 31, 2006
120
of
216 people found this review helpful
This movie is so bad (okay for those who remember Johnny Carson, go ahead ask; How Bad was it?)
that FOX wouldn't let the press in for the premiere or party afterwards-in other words, even they know this disaster film is indeed a celluloid disaster!!!---It's the "ISHTAR" /"GIGLI" of F/X laden flicks,---- QUESTION; If you lived in New York, and the sea level rises to the chin
of the Statue of Liberty, would you be smart enough to evacuate ? *****
Not these folks, they possess less I.Q. than those people in slasher flicks
who enter a house with a killer lurking inside, and don't turn on the lights or get a gun).
Unfortunately, this pretty much sums up the logic of the on screen
common sense---If I lived in New York, I'd be outraged at the film makers
insulting portrayal, I mean, granted they're vastly liberal, but even so, after 9
/11, I think they showed tremondeous courage, tenacity, intelligence,
and unity,
ALL of the scientific community, even those who subscribe to the
global warning theory (which is widely ridiculed, by many of their colleagues) disputes the absurd science in this movie.**** But I was honestly looking forward to this one, thus
the reason for a special advance showing with some friends who run the local theater).**** Al Gore (his Secret Service code name was "Chicken Little" you know "The sky is falling!)and his
enviromentalists wackos friends, are urging people to see this, as a prelude to
what's in store for us all, if we don't adopt the Kyoto treaty (remind
me again, why he and Clinton didn't sign on the dotted line?)--but I'll
keep politics out of the review and just look at this as a popcorn
flick, but this movie is more like the unpopped kernels in the bottom of
the tub, you know what it was suppose to be, but it didn't quite become what it was suppose tobe.
By comparison, GODZILLA is the Gone With the Wind of sci-fi blockbuster
flicks- This is hilariously awful in most places, with an incoherent
script and questionable acting, (it's almost like Dennis Quaid realized
the mistake he had made in accepting the role, -at times he honestly looks bored-granted he has never been very
animated in his roles, but at least he's always been watchable, until
now) , --sure this flick will have fans, let's face it, even "King Kong Lives" or "JAWS 4", has fans, --come to think of it, they were better than this turkey---CAN innumerable,
mind-numbing special effects, nearly all of them generated by computer, (painfully obvious and unconvincing,
even more so than Spiderman swinging through the city), then placed in what can only best be described as a random order, overcome sheer
inanity?
Don't get me wrong, I loved Emmerich's "Independence Day"
- but it had a strong script with, well developed characters and it
was fun.
Bill Pullman and Will Smith, not to mention Mary McDonnell, Jeff
Goldblum, Vivica A. Fox and Margaret Colin, made the otherwise
preposterous story of aliens invading Earth seem plausible. They each
had a tremendous nobility and spoke with wit and intelligence, and there
was a feeling of a common threat and an equally shared goal.
None of this, not one bit of it, is evident in "The Day After Tomorrow."
This fish stinks from the head down, the head in this case being
Emmerich's wussy incompetent president (Perry King) and scheming vice president
(Kenneth Welsh).
Unlike Pullman in "ID4," this president is a bumbling idiot, a puppet
manipulated by his evil, self-motivated vice president. I guess this is
supposed to be a clever reference to how liberals characterize the
current administration, but it backfires instead, disarming the film and
undermining it critically. The director's left leaning politically
motivatations were apparent even to a friend who saw this one with
me, and he's a democrat, he enjoys these type movies even more than me,
and he was laughing at the cheesy f/x, and corny, inept script. Perhaps
the screen writer and director are good buddies with Micheal Moore?
You see, when America is imperiled in a disaster film, it's the
president to whom we turn as the moral compass. The hero - in this case,
a poorly conceived one played by Dennis Quaid (think of Al Gore, only more stiff and wooden)- can have all the
adventures, but he must report ultimately to a fair and wise leader.
Quaid's storyline doesn't help matters. His Jack Hall is a
"climatologist" (who undoubtably can quote Al Gore's "Earth in Lurch" chapter and verse,) who knows that global warming may catalyze a new ice age (okay
which is it--Warming or freezing) . When tornados hit Hollywood and
start ripping up other cities instantaneously, he still lets his moody
high-school-age son (Jake Gyllenhaal, who has yet to display charm and charisma that Tobey Maquire possesses, thankfully he didn't get the coveted role of Spiderman) go to New York on a school outing
(maybe he has a huge life insurance policy on him).
After the son leaves, and Quaid realizes that the world may be ending,
he decides that in order to bond with the boy he will brave the
calamitous floods, blizzards, hurricanes and tidal waves bearing down on
the Northeast corridor and walk - yes, walk, if he must - from
Washington, D.C. to Manhattan just to show the boy he cares, he really,
really cares (what is suppose to be poignant is instead- absurd).
His trek replaces Diane Keaton's walk through the snowy Russian woods in
"Reds" as the most ill-conceived hike in movie history.
For some reasons which are never unexplained, Quaid takes with him on this
quest two buddies who you know will not make it, (sort like the old Star
Trek, when Kirk beamed down on a planet with unknown extras, you
knew they were toast,). This is supposed to be noble just because it's
noble, but as Mister Rogers might have said, can you spell "S-I--L-L-Y?.
Do these men have families of their own? Do they owe Quaid's character
some debt, or are they on their way to Massachuetts for a trip to city
hall? The answer to each of these questions is: We never know.
Is Jack's son either perilously young or terminally ill? No, and no. He
is fully grown and able to take care of himself, or at least wait until
the catastrophe passes to be reunited with dear old dad.
The rest of "Day After" is simply a rehash of past triumphs. The special
effects are clearly from the Emmerich school: lots of stopped traffic,
yellow cabs' horns honking furiously, crowds running in all directions
from the oncoming horror of meteor-sized hail.
You've seen it before in "ID4" and "Godzilla." Whole cities are
demolished and flood waters rise to the tops of buildings while the main
characters fret that "things are getting really bad out there."
There's also a peculiar insensitivity, I think, to those who lived
through September 11.
In "Day After," downtown New York, in an aerial view, is flooded with
water and then snow. The whole thing resembles the billowing smoke that
poured between the canyons of buildings on that horrible day from real
life. Later, survivors are seen waving from rooftops of buildings, a
grisly reminder of the tragic souls who made that mistake at the World
Trade Center hoping for safety.
New Yorkers do not need to see their city in this condition, whether or
not it's fantasy. I'd rather fly on the wings of soaring birds with
Harry Potter than relive those grim images as entertainment. |
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