The Day After Tomorrow
Now, this was a big movie! For everything that Troy lacked in scope as far as being an epic, The Day After Tomorrow made up for it. It's the kind of movie that needs to be viewed in widescreen, because, otherwise, it'd feel like you were missing tons.
As far as the actual story, it's pretty straight-forward: There's an ice age, lots of people freeze, everything gets covered in snow, and only Dennis Quaid survives (he's so plucky). Actually, the movie has a lot of time to build up why it's happening, as it ran just over two hours, but the explanation finally comes out in about five seconds (glaciers melt, dump all kinds of fresh water into the ocean, which disrupts to salt-fresh balance and screws up the North Atlantic current). The rest of the time is spent showing the audience all the damage.
The science of the movie takes up about the entire first half, as Dr. Dennis Quaid tries to explain to the incredibly stubborn American vice-president that greenhouse gases are really screwing up the climate, while the second half of the movie deals with the survival/love/everybody coming together when it really counts part of the story.
The vice-president does a very good job of illustrating America's often pig-headed view of the consumption of natural resources, as he continuously points out the economic costs of things like the Kyoto Accord. But then, of course, the President dies in one of the storms, the vice-president takes over and is all of a sudden nice and cuddly and thinks saving the environment is a great idea. Oh yeah, the States is really well known for accepting different ideas without a fight.
Jake Gyllenhal, who plays Quaid's son, is actually quite wooden throughout the movie. He shows very little emotion, even when he's being chased by wolves, covered in snow, pelted by rain, watching his girlfriend almost die, and re-uniting with his father after the storms have subsided.
One particularly amusing part came when the news anchors are recounting the devastating hail/typhoons/cyclones/snows around the globe, Canada suffers through unusual winds from the Arctic. You kind of expect to see them all out in their hot tubs. Kind of like the first single-digit-negative day in March when everyone starts walking around in shorts.
All in all, though, it was worth seeing, and definitely needs to at least be watched on video (in widescreen). Like I said, a very big movie. Just don't believe any of it. The story is definitely very interesting (I love disaster movies, because somehow they always seem to target major cities. Maybe city planners shouldn't build cities on fault lines and volcanoes and such), and the special effects and satellite shots of the storm let how see just how far reaching they are, plus the images of things like cargo ships floating down the middle of Manhattan Island and tornadoes wiping out the Hollywood sign give it a more concrete feel since you actually know where it's happening.
Oh, on one final note, everyone fled to Mexico to escape the climate change, where they were denied access to the country and had to cross the Rio Grande. Nice touch. They were only allowed into the country after the President agreed to wipe out all Latin American debt. Nicer touch.
Now, this was a big movie! For everything that Troy lacked in scope as far as being an epic, The Day After Tomorrow made up for it. It's the kind of movie that needs to be viewed in widescreen, because, otherwise, it'd feel like you were missing tons.
As far as the actual story, it's pretty straight-forward: There's an ice age, lots of people freeze, everything gets covered in snow, and only Dennis Quaid survives (he's so plucky). Actually, the movie has a lot of time to build up why it's happening, as it ran just over two hours, but the explanation finally comes out in about five seconds (glaciers melt, dump all kinds of fresh water into the ocean, which disrupts to salt-fresh balance and screws up the North Atlantic current). The rest of the time is spent showing the audience all the damage.
The science of the movie takes up about the entire first half, as Dr. Dennis Quaid tries to explain to the incredibly stubborn American vice-president that greenhouse gases are really screwing up the climate, while the second half of the movie deals with the survival/love/everybody coming together when it really counts part of the story.
The vice-president does a very good job of illustrating America's often pig-headed view of the consumption of natural resources, as he continuously points out the economic costs of things like the Kyoto Accord. But then, of course, the President dies in one of the storms, the vice-president takes over and is all of a sudden nice and cuddly and thinks saving the environment is a great idea. Oh yeah, the States is really well known for accepting different ideas without a fight.
Jake Gyllenhal, who plays Quaid's son, is actually quite wooden throughout the movie. He shows very little emotion, even when he's being chased by wolves, covered in snow, pelted by rain, watching his girlfriend almost die, and re-uniting with his father after the storms have subsided.
One particularly amusing part came when the news anchors are recounting the devastating hail/typhoons/cyclones/snows around the globe, Canada suffers through unusual winds from the Arctic. You kind of expect to see them all out in their hot tubs. Kind of like the first single-digit-negative day in March when everyone starts walking around in shorts.
All in all, though, it was worth seeing, and definitely needs to at least be watched on video (in widescreen). Like I said, a very big movie. Just don't believe any of it. The story is definitely very interesting (I love disaster movies, because somehow they always seem to target major cities. Maybe city planners shouldn't build cities on fault lines and volcanoes and such), and the special effects and satellite shots of the storm let how see just how far reaching they are, plus the images of things like cargo ships floating down the middle of Manhattan Island and tornadoes wiping out the Hollywood sign give it a more concrete feel since you actually know where it's happening.
Oh, on one final note, everyone fled to Mexico to escape the climate change, where they were denied access to the country and had to cross the Rio Grande. Nice touch. They were only allowed into the country after the President agreed to wipe out all Latin American debt. Nicer touch.
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