Review: The Day After Tomorrow

Movie: The Day After Tomorrow

Main Actors: Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal and Emmy Rossum (For a complete list, see IMDB)

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Passionate Expressions: I’m going to go 50/50 on this one. The language that is used is in response to extremely stressful situations, yes.

Useless Vulgar Language: However, some of the language that is thrown in seems to just be put in there to put it there and at times the actors seem awkward saying them. Not because it looks like they don’t want to say them, but because the words don’t fit the tone of the film. But, there was a surprising lack of language for what this film could have had.

Sex in a Good Light: There is a first kiss between two senior high school students that I did not find offensive at all. Considering all of the bad things that had been happening, the writers could have taken the opportunity to push it farther but they didn’t, good for them. One of Dennis Quaid's buddies tries to hit on one of those multitudes of hot female government employees that Hollywood seems to have in endless supply but she denies him entirely. It is nice to see 1. A guy have the courage to go for it and 2. A woman have the moral fortitude to not encourage him, handle him with decency and not give him anything out of pity like it is something she can just throw away. I’ve heard some people say that there is an inappropriate scene in this movie, but I disagree. There is one scene where Jake takes his shirt off and the girl is Emily is hugging him, trying to warm him up because he has hypothermia. That’s the way it works, body heat is the number one way to warm someone when body heat is all you have. Also, they could have lost more clothes, and in reality, less clothes on them and more clothes around them would have been more effective so again I say bravo to the film crew for not taking it any farther and just telling us what we needed to know and see to get the point.


Sex in a Bad Light: I didn’t really see any.

Manly Violence: The two most violent parts of the movie are both done during a scene that have a sense of adventure and heroics. Dennis Quaid's character and his friends go through a emotional scene where one of them sacrifices himself for the good of the team and to allow Dennis to continue the trek to rescue his son (Note to self: never be the fattest guy on a snow covered trek across New York) The second one comes when Jake’s character and his friends venture into the snow covered streets of New York to retrieve some medicine for Emily’s character who has fallen ill. They brave the snow, a creepy abandoned ship and crazy CGI wolves.

Action Violence: There is some action violence that comes in the form of crashing helicopters and one of the many stock video of New York being destroyed: This time by water.

Pointless Violence: They were able to avoid this by just showing the destruction of the city in general and not focusing too much on the people involved.

Manly Rating: C

Scorecard
Cinematography: B
Visual Effects: B
Sound/Score: B
Story: F
Acting: B

Food to Watch With: Something Frozen, preferably ice cream with lots of frozen bits of candy.

Plot Synopsis: The earth responds to our destruction of its environment by rapidly freezing the earth and starting a new ice age.

Review: I view this movie two ways. When I first saw it I was in the mood to be entertained and I enjoy watching outdoor movies like Cliffhanger and Vertical Limit so I latched onto certain parts of this film and enjoyed the man vs. nature aspects of it. But, after I came down from my CGI snow and Reese’s Pieces induced high I had some different opinions. There are a lot of earth disaster movies out there. For most of them the plots are pretty outlandish and impossible and are meant to be viewed that way. But this one was different. The center point of this movie was on the U.S. government's ‘accepted’ view on the state of the planet. The idea that humans are destroying the environment by being evil and greedy. I personally disagree with this idea and I believe that clear looks at actual facts will back that up, but that is beside the point. The point is that it mixes the still unconfirmed with the impossible and tries to actually pass them off as fact, maybe unintentionally, but that is what happened. That combination was not a successful one. The film gets lost in it’s self. Is it a disaster movie or is it just a better funded version of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. I don’t think the film makers were certain and consequently, I’m not certain. So, there are some good adventure scenes and terrible science trying to be good science and the poor viewer in the middle, confused and unfulfilled on both fronts. Blah.

Life Lessons: Dennis Quaid’s character (Jake’s Father) was tied up in his education and job when Jake was growing up, and as result, their relationship is strained. Go Figure. The film does promote selflessness and decency. Emily’s character was a breath of fresh air in a world filled with feminist or slutty female antagonists.

Summary: Confused and a bit of a let down.

Would I Watch This Again: Not really.