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>> THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (2004)

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Jake Gylenhall, Ian Holm, and more ...
Director: Roland Emmerich
Genre: Action & Adventure




honestly, it's kinda tricky doing a review for this movie. "the day after tomorrow" is a disaster epic movie about global warming. jack hall (dennis quaid) is a paleoclimatologist, whose research says that global warming will lead to a new ice age. during a conference in new delhi, he brought his concerns and gave a fair warning about his theory only to be dismissed due to economic infeasability by the american vice president (kenneth welsh), who looks alot like the one we currently have. soon after the conference, the irregularities in the weather comes rather abruptly. snow in india, hail with blocks of ice destroying parts of japan, and temperature drop near the greenland. birds are seen to fly south, escaping themselves from the upcoming storm, turbulence in the sky, ripping off the planes from the sky and before long, tornadoes (not just one, but three!) ripping apart los angeles, and tsunami roars into new york city.

in the midst of mother nature's wrath, jack's son, sam (jake gyllenhall) was on a trip to new york to be involved in an academic decathlon team, which includes the girl he's been eyeing for, laura (emmy rossum). as they arrived to new york, it was raining cats and dogs, and before they can go back to washington dc, where they live, manhattan was flooded with the wall of water, almost as high as the skylines, and buried manhattan along with it. they managed to go to the high place, more precisely, the upper level of new york's public library. as the weather worsened, the water becomes ice and snow came in. the temperature keeps dropping fast. in the meantime, jack was able to get the president's attention to abandon and evacuate the south part of the country. he draws a slash across a map of the united states, and told everyone on the south should leave while those who lives in the north are too late to be saved. despite his own advice, he was off to new york, trying to save his only son, sam, with two of his buddies whose always been with him through his arctic journeys.

i have to admit, roland emmerich is an expert in making disaster movie like "godzilla" or "independence day". the graphic was swell.. plain awesome. you get the visual message of how dangerous and unpredictable mother nature is. however, this is a movie. despite the theory and the science behind it, this movie is meant for entertainment. and as hollywood entertains us.. it always has to be a mixed of happy ending, impossible actions, and a bit of love story... oh, and corny dialog too. yes, the movie is profoundly silly, yet scary.

picturing new york being destroyed, it's kinda giving me a mixed feeling. don't we have enough problems already? not only we're being destroyed in the real life, but over and over in the movie. why not focus on just destroying "hollywood" for once? and as many hollywood grand-scale movie in the past, many small stuffs that many audience wouldn't notice with the grand disaster it offers, weren't being explained in detail. stuff like.. walking from the north of philly to new york while the temperature keeps dropping (and it's not a short walk!), how possible is that? or while jack's expertise is needed, he left and go to new york to "save" his son, who godknows might be dead or alive. and the silly things keep showing. the body heat, the american refugees fleeting to mexico that that was being refused in mexican border. the US president have to make a deal to erase mexican debts as long as they allow they open the border to americans. ha! it's pretty funny to put america in that position.

the casting was pretty good, this movie definitely gives jake gylenhall a push to his acting career, despite the lack of it in this movie. it's just weird seeing him in a box office movie, when we know he's one of those actors who do act and always in indie label production, but hey it's about time for him to go mainstream, i guess. both gylenhall and quaid do what can be done with impossible and corny dialog in an unlikely situation to make it work. sela ward was also in it as jack hall's wife, although her beautiful face was only in few scenes. ian holm, as a wise scottish metereologist, was giving a performance during the quiet scenes and eventhough the scene may not mean anything, he makes it something.

overall, i do like the movie and the grand of the action and the idea behind it. but i find it annoying to see the small details being ignored and out of place. but as i said in the beginning.. it's meant for entertainment, so i have to accept it as that. and i must say, it's quite entertaining to see. it makes a fun movie.


>> rated by :: sLesTa | [ ]

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