The Day After Tomorrow
Jake Gylenhaal plays Sam Hall, son of climatologist
Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) who, while visiting New
York, gets stranded in the public library after a
huge wave engulfs the city and plunges it underwater. The reason? Global warming. It also brings about huge tornadoes that destroy Los Angeles as well as hail stones that rain down on Tokyo and freezing temperatures that hit Europe. While all this is going on Jack sets out on a mission to rescue his son before it's too late and decides to trek from Washington to New York, braving the ice cold blizzards that are tearing the country apart.
The first thing you want to know before you see this film is whether or not the special effects are up to scratch. I can safely say that they are pretty spectacular and even rather chilling. Watching New York go under is quite scary and seeing LA ripped apart by twisters is surreal. It's definately convincing, and yet the so called "action scenes" are over far too quickly, both in terms of individual length and their placement in the film. It's all over by mid-point and the pace slows down drastically as the focus switches to the main characters. This would have been welcome if it wasn't for the fact that they are so badly written that it's appaling. In fact, the whole movie suffers from an abysmal screenplay that does nothing but embarrass itself. The film is unintentionally funny throughout; there are parts that are so silly and so ludicrous that it is difficult to keep a straight face, and I'm not even talking about the action. The dialogue is so clichéd that you can pretty much guess what each character is about to say. There are no surprises here whatsoever, everything that is likely to happen in a typical Hollywood action movie does. The obligatory family crisis, the mad scientist who no one believes until it's too late, the figures of authority who do nothing but sit around and talk over each other, the cheesy love story, the supporting characters who are on hand for the sole purpous of dying when you need them to while the leads survive unscathed. If you're into this sort of thing then you will no doubt enjoy this, but if you prefer films with some level of intelligence then steer clear.
This is empty spectacle in its purest form. This whole movie has been constructed around special effects, and though they are quite special they mean nothing without a decent plot or some interesting characters to boot. At least if the action scenes had thrown up something new or exciting then this could have been a less bland affair but alas, it wasn't meant to be. This is empty, by-the-numbers filmaking for the masses. It'll probably whip up a storm at the box office, so to speak, but just like most money-making projects it has no artistic credibility whatsoever.
Rating- 5/10 |
