Hot effects, cold plot in ‘Day’

VAN NOVACK

Adherence to scientific fact, history, or even logic has never been a

hallmark of the summer blockbuster. Late spring through Memorial Day

has always served as the traditional “kickoff” for the summer movie

season. Released this time of year have been noted science fiction

films such as “Alien,” the entire “Star Wars” franchise and a couple

of “Indiana Jones” offerings, and of course unsettling disaster

flicks like “Twister,” “Deep Impact,” and “Volcano.”

A notable addition to this latter genre is “The Day After

Tomorrow,” which takes the consequences posed by global warming to

their most frightening extreme. The film is directed by Roland

Emmerich who also shares the writing credit. Emmerich previously

directed and wrote “Godzilla,” “Independence Day” and “Stargate.” All

of these previous efforts broke new ground for special effects magic,

and “The Day After Tomorrow” follows suit.

Dennis Quaid stars as Jack Hall, a paleoclimatologist drilling

Antarctic ice fields as the film opens. Twenty-six feet down, the

drilling equipment breaks through and sinks into an abyss, almost

followed by Hall and his fellow researchers. What has occurred is a

piece of the ice shelf bigger than Rhode Island has broken off, an

ominous indicator of global warming.

When Hall’s computer modeling indicates the imminent possibility

of a new ice age, he sounds the alarm at a New Delhi conference. His

warning is summarily dismissed by American Vice President Becker

(Kenneth Walsh), a dead ringer for Dick Cheney.

Hall’s warning is taken seriously when it begins snowing in India,

baseball size hail decimates Tokyo, and record cold and snowfall

devastate large portions of the globe. Finally getting a chance to

address the president directly, Hall draws a line across a map of the

continental United States and tells the president to evacuate

everyone south of it. Hall considers everyone north of the line

doomed, including his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) who is attending an

academic decathlon in New York.

As with all disaster epics, the fate of mankind and the

geopolitical consequences of most of North America and nearly all of

Europe being uninhabitable are barely touched upon. Instead, the

audience must endure inane subplots such as Jack Hall walking to New

York from Washington to rescue his son as his doctor ex-wife Lucy

(Sela Ward) refuses to vacate the hospital for the sake of a pitiful

child with cancer. The outcomes of these tangential story lines are

predictable and anticlimactic.

The one exception to the two-dimensional human component in “The

Day After Tomorrow” is provided by Sir Ian Holm as a doomed Scottish

meteorologist. As Peter O’ Toole showed in “Troy,” a classically

trained actor can give heft and meaning to almost any scene.

I do not usually enjoy a film where it is apparent the bulk of the

effort was expended on the special effects and the plot merely holds

the showcase visuals together. However, the awesome scale and

artistry of the special effects here stand on their own merits. When

tornados shred Los Angeles (including the famous Hollywood sign), a

wall of water buries Manhattan and washes ocean-going ships down the

streets like rubber duckies, and snow and ice bury the Statue of

Liberty, it is hard to not have a visceral reaction. A nice touch is

the intermittent reports and views from space station astronauts as

they literally witness the end of the world as we know it.

So, is “The Day After Tomorrow” a good film? The plot is marginal

and most scientists have noted the speed and scale of the climatic

changes portrayed are simply not possible. Nonetheless, I feel the

movie is worth the price of admission just to witness the devastation

of the first hour alone. You might experience the sensation of

gawking at an accident scene, but I doubt if you’ve ever witnessed a

more spectacular train wreck.

* VAN NOVACK is the director of institutional research at Cal

State Long Beach and lives in Huntington Beach with his wife

Elizabeth.