the day after tomorrow

tdat_dt2_sm.jpgEbert says it best: "'The Day After Tomorrow' is ridiculous, yes, but sublimely ridiculous -- and the special effects are stupendous."

We went to see it this afternoon -- I'm a disaster movie freak and I've been waiting forever to see it. I checked the website every week or so to see if there were any new trailers. I read all about the science behind the premise of the movie (the most credible article is this: The Day After Tomorrow: Could it really happen? from The Weather Underground. The answer is, yeah, some of it, but not the flash freeze stuff.)

So, it was fun. It was stupid. The dialog was stupid. The stupidest part was Dick Cheney finally admitting he was wrong -- it took a planetary disaster to induce that in the movie Cheney. Another stupid part was the bitching about the end of civilization due to the new ice age in the northern hemisphere. Guess all those people in South America, Africa, and Australia aren't civilized. Oh, and that a Gutenberg Bible represented civilization. Yep, definitely a white man's movie.

At any rate, the special effects were great -- but there weren't enough of them. Would've loved to have seen more of what happened due to the bizarre weather. The ice shelf breaking off was great. But what is the average temperature during an ice age? I mean, is it colder than living in Iceland or Siberia?

All the pre-movie buildup about how this was gonna fry the administration's asses for screwing around with the environment, and ignite something (I'm not sure what) to spur the environmental movement was BS. I think the producers were trying to pull a "Passion" number.

The movie started out stupid: The Veep at a science meeting? Get real. Why was Dennis Quaid misting all those dead plants? Why did daddy trek north to get sonny boy if they could've sent helicopters in? Why am I even thinking about the two hours of stupidness anyway?

The special effects were stupendous. I don't know why Ebert gave it three stars, except that it was fun to watch. Well, except for the preachy crap. God Dennis Quaid has the goofiest smile. Gotta hand it to those Quaid boys -- they sure can save this old world. Except that Dennis didn't -- I still can't figure out why he's the hero in this movie. "Independence Day" was loads better than this movie.

All I can say is "Thank god for Wendy's." Can always drop in there to avoid being freeze dried. I wonder what Dennis would've done if he'd been more than 50 feet from a building? And I never did figure out why that other guy just collapsed. Here was the best scene: Other guy is trucking along behind Dennis, trudging across the tops of the malls in Jersey to get to Manhattan. Other guy collapses. Dennis says to the unconscious guy, "Hey, are you all right?"

Well, the dog survived. That's the only being in the movie I cared about.

What struck me most about the movie happened afterwords: all those assholes in their SUVs revving up in a rush to be the first out of the parking garage -- when climate change does really happen, those types will be the first to bitch about the government not doing enough to prevent it.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/28/04 at 04:47 PM
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