The Media Drop

I just started laughing this morning at Rox’s post that starts “I refused to stand in line all night to see a movie.” I figured that was inspiration enough to put up this review that I was slacking off on since yesterday.

Taking Fridays off is a good thing - taking Fridays off and going to the movies at 4pm is a really good thing. And if the turnout at the 4pm showing of “The Day After Tomorrow” is saying anything, then it’ll make some serious loot this weekend. This whole hype fest started six months or so ago. I’ve been talking about this flick ever since I came across its ultra-cool website. The reason I got a kick out of it? The funny (phony) weather ticker running at the top. Some of the photos were fantastic, and having a countdown to destruction of life as we know it - can’t beat that.

Director Roland Emmerich did a great job of continuing to destroy major cities (both Godzilla and Independence Day seem to have it in for New York City, by the way), and some of the filming was downright amazing. The main characters are played by Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sela Ward (who make up a broken up family unit), and a group of younger actors including Emmy Rossum and Arjay Smith. [more details here at IMDb]

The gist of the film is that Quaid’s character, climatologist Jack Hall, seems to be right on when predicting that a major climate shift is on the way for the world - but no one believes him, including the Vice President, played by Kenneth Welsh (who played “Doc” in the ice hockey film “Miracle” of late). So, the U.S. goes about doing nothing, and soon after, major storms start hitting stateside. Tornadoes devastate the city of Los Angeles. Huge rainstorms hit New York City, where Gyllenhaal’s character, Sam Hall, happens to be at the moment with some other students. There were some excellent exchanges here, and I was happy to see that the film let everything happened in a decent amount of time, and tried to focus more on the personal side to the story. I’m sure some folks will complain and say there wasn’t enough destruction in this film, but I think those folks have probably never read a book - where you have to imagine what is happening outside the narrator’s point of view in order to get a “big picture” of the situation at hand.

Without giving up a lot of the plot, Quaid goes on the hunt from Washington, D.C. all the way to New York to find his son, while numerous weather fiascos show up in his path. Some decent foreshadowing is used, creating obstacles for any character who hasn’t frozen, gotten hit with a bus, or had a hailstone the size of a brick land on their head just yet. Line of the film - Arjay Smith’s character, Brian Parks: “There’s a whole set of tax code books down here - I don’t think we need them anymore.”

This film had a decent amount of humor, considering the topic on display. The characters you were interested in knowing about, you learned a little bit about as the film progressed. All in all, I was pleased with the movie, and think it was definitely worth waiting months and months for. Science aside, it was fun to watch and interesting to hear how the characters explained away things that didn’t seem feasible - but, in a way, I think that was the point. Folks in the media and scientists are spending so much time trying to say that the film isn’t “scientifically proven” - I only have three things to say about that. 1. It’s a movie. Relax and get some popcorn. 2. Just because *you* can’t prove this doesn’t mean it’s not feasible. You sound just like most of the people in the flick. 3. Bumblebees can’t fly - on paper - if I remember that correctly.