The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
Directed by Roland Emmerich
After paleoclimatologist Jack Hall is largely ignored by UN officials when presenting his environmental concerns about the beginning of a new Ice Age, his research proves true when a superstorm develops, setting off catastrophic natural disasters throughout the world. Trying to get to his son, Sam, who is trapped in New York City with his friend Laura and others, Jack and his crew must travel to get to Sam before it's too late.
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Certainly, there's nothing here to match General Richard Widmark's immortal line in The Swarm -- "Houston on fire.
Emmerich is more of a kindred spirit to the late schlockmeister producer Irwin Allen ("The Swarm," "The Poseidon Adventure") than he is to Michael Moore, and "Day" is far more effective as a guilty-pleasure popcorn extravaganza than as any kind of a serious political statement.
Working with the doomed Scottish weather experts (the trio, which also includes Simon (Adrian Lester, "Love's Labour's Lost") and Dennis (Richard McMillan), are reminiscent of the Australian satellite guys of "The Dish"), Jack works out a model that predicts the Northern Hemisphere will be encased in ice within 48 hours.
Walker and Helen Reddy as a singing nun, while The Towering Inferno found a role for O.J. Simpson.
It's a little better than "Earthquake" but not as good as "The Towering Inferno," because it doesn't star Steve McQueen and Paul Newman.
Ever since the early 70's, moviegoers have approached watching disaster epics -- like "Earthquake," "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno" -- with a guilty pleasure, train wreck-style sensibility.
If you grew up watching "Earthquake!" or "The Towering Inferno" -- or even their latter-day counterparts "Twister" and "Deep Impact" -- you'll be pleased to see "Day" follows the disaster movie playbook to the letter.
Remember the scene in Deep Impact when Tea Leoni and Maximilian Schell wait on the beach for the tidal wave to kill them?
The Day After Tomorrow is on several levels poorly made and dramatically juvenile, but the whole movie wisely showcases the strong, sober intuitions at its core: it's like Deep Impact as made by Michael Moore, and that's a good thing, or a good enough thing.
Having seen all of the epic disaster films of the 1970s – what might be called the Irwin Allen era – (featuring The Towering Inferno, Airport, The Poseidon Adventure and others), and the occasional disaster revival film of the 1980s (When Time Ran Out) and 1990s (Deep Impact, The Perfect Storm), I’d say that this Roland Emmerich movie must be considered among the best.
And just as the New York rainstorm forces city residents to seek out higher ground, the metropolis is nearly wiped out by a massive tidal wave (think of the "Deep Impact" climax taken down a slight notch).
Independence Day wasn’t exactly a fountain of logic and neither were Twister or Deep Impact .
The impressive CGI devastation includes a Russian freighter floating up Fifth Avenue during a giant tidal surge, the Statue of Liberty covered in an icy crust and the "Hollywood" sign crumpling in a Los Angeles tornado, albeit reminiscent of "Twister," "The Core," "Deep Impact," "Armageddon," "Vertical Limit," etc..
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(It speaks to some sort of collective masochism that we take such pleasure in watching ourselves be flattened, or, more likely, we just get a kick out of destruction â cinematically it does, after all, date back at least to 1936âs San Francisco, if not the early silent newsreels.)
Emmerich is more of a kindred spirit to the late schlockmeister producer Irwin Allen ("The Swarm," "The Poseidon Adventure") than he is to Michael Moore, and "Day" is far more effective as a guilty-pleasure popcorn extravaganza than as any kind of a serious political statement.
I almost lost it when someone yelled, “It’s a wall of water coming toward New York City!” because that’s the most laughable line in The Poseidon Adventure (1972), too.
Having seen all of the epic disaster films of the 1970s – what might be called the Irwin Allen era – (featuring The Towering Inferno, Airport, The Poseidon Adventure and others), and the occasional disaster revival film of the 1980s (When Time Ran Out) and 1990s (Deep Impact, The Perfect Storm), I’d say that this Roland Emmerich movie must be considered among the best.
After being bombarded with flat effects void of the personality Jan de Bont brought to 1996's overrated Twister (remember the flying cows, anyone?), we are subjected to the most implausible father/son redemption tale ever committed to film.
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And the makers of Earthquake even possessed the ingenuity to cast 52-year-old Ava Gardner as 59-year-old Lorne Greene's daughter.
Inspired by "The Coming Global Superstorm," by those noted scientists Art Bell (radio's Pahrump-based voice of doom) and Whitley Strieber (whose "Communion" chronicled his alien abduction), "The Day After Tomorrow's" factual accuracy seems as suspect as some of the movie's outlandish set pieces.