I found myself totally blown away as I sat through the latest SFX-laden sci-fi disaster movie, "The Day After Tomorrow." It's a bit hard to sit and watch with apathy as you see your home -- in my case, New York City -- being devastated by the terrific forces of nature. Many reviews disregard this movie as implausible trash, but I was utterly horrified -- and completely mesmerized. "The Day After Tomorrow" explores the consequences of global warming (as well as ignoring it), which entails the melting of polar ice caps in the North Pole and causes storms and flooding, then a second "Ice Age" in the Eastern seaboard of North America. The theory is that the melting of the polar ice caps would flood the North Atlantic ocean with excess freshwater and decrease its salinity, which reverses the direction of the Gulf Stream and rapidly drop the temperature of the areas that rely on its warm currents. In the movie, this translates to boulder-sized chunks of hail raining on the poor citizens of Tokyo, massive tornadoes decimating the skyscrapers of L.A, and a tidal wave followed by instantaneous freezing in NYC.
Granted, what happens onscreen is not likely to happen in real life (at least not in the timespan depicted in the movie, anyway) but it is quite eerie to consider that the ultimate catastrophe could be caused by our own selfish depletion of natural resources. Perhaps that is exactly what the film wants us to do; however, what makes me give any thought about this at all is not the political statements interjected in between or the human drama, but the special effects themselves. They are simply awesome to behold. This big-budget film displays its dollar amounts through highly impressive, eye-popping visuals. Los Angeles gets a taste of "Twister," but far worse -- dark tornadoes cutting a swath through the city, tossing and flattening people, cars and buildings with a furious domination. In Europe, we see helicopters airlifting the Royal family make a sudden halt as the temperature drops to a freezing point and causes them to fall, making Ice Age mummies of the pilots as well. Then we have that massive tsunami rising to the height of NYC's building and subduing all who didn't escape quick enough. Although seeing L.A getting blasted by tornadoes was a pretty gruesome scene, seeing NYC, in all settings familiar to me, getting submerged in water and then overtaken by ice registered a bigger impact. Let me tell you I was actually relieved when I walked outside in Times Square and saw it had stopped raining and the sky had cleared. From the large-scale effects like the cracking of an ice shelf in the Arctic to the small touches, the SFX was good enough that I found those scenes terrifyingly realistic.
Overshadowed by the special effects is the human plot in "The Day After Tomorrow." Dennis Quaid is Jack Hall, the scientist who warns the international community of the global warming situation, but gets largely ignored until it's too late. Although the scenes of destruction are far more riveting than his weather forecasts, it gets more interesting when his son is caught in the eye of the storm in midtown Manhattan. In fact, things become downright incredible -- for one, Jack emphatically vows to find his son and embarks on a trek from Washington DC to NYC in his skis, then his son gets attacked by wolves on a bigass ship that sailed into a Manhattan street, Mexico finds a gigantic bunch of U.S. refugees crossing its border and... well, the list of oddities go on and on. Another even weird thing is the Al Gore lookalike president in the movie is portrayed positively (supportive of a nationwide evacuation) while the Dick Cheney lookalike vice president is depicted as an ignorant, stubborn sonofabitch (insisting it is not necessary) – hmm, is that some sort of jab at politics? Despite the queerness of it all, the story adds a touch as dramatic as the wrath of Mother Nature, so it seems fitting and fun to watch, if not at all moving to the heart (although I'd say the main actors worked well with what's given to them).
I would suggest watching "The Day After Tomorrow" with a suspended disbelief -- after all, you won't believe most of the things that happen. In fact, it would probably do this movie some good to cut out a few scenes that crossed the border beyond ridiculous -- yet I don't know if I would enjoy it as much without the blatant cheesiness. Either way, I found it highly entertaining due to its steady, but rapid pace, its "what if?" presentation and awesome visual effects. I highly recommend this for pure escapism entertainment.
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