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Roland Emmerich has yet to prove much to Hollywood or the whole of the moviegoing community except for that the man likes his violence and can blow up a heck of a lot of stuff without cohering to any sort of logical storyline or fleshed-out cannon fodd...um, characters. The Day After Tomorrow, Emmerich's latest, has everything that his other let's-kill-everything blockbusters (like the much-maligned yet enjoyable smashes Independence Day and Godzilla) had, and in large quantities. Illogical scientific rationale? Check. Cutesy catchphrases? Check. Cardboard characters? Check. Explosions? Double humongous check. However, there's a difference in Tomorrow. That difference is that the scientific malarkey isn't at all acceptable, the catchphrases don't inspire chuckles, the stiff characters aren't likable, and the explosions are nothing but meaningless CGI to lure audiences into watching two-and-some-odd hours of pure, unadulterated badness. What little story The Day After Tomorrow does have concerns Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), a paleoclimatologist (one who studies prehistoric climates...of course) who has been predicting that global warming will lead to some kind of ice age...it's just a clichéd shame that the government doesn't listen to him until it's much too late, and Roland "I Love Blowing Stuff Up" Emmerich is already wreaking havoc on the entire world, though prominently New York City. Has the man not devastated NYC enough in his previous outings? Why not target Cleveland, or something? While the gigantic ice storm begins, Jack's son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), is trapped in New York, and so Jack begins a foolish, impossible journey on foot to rescue his son...had the film been any kind of realistic, Jack would've died very quickly. But I guess that realism is not the reason for which films like Tomorrow are created. Still, some remote form of logic wouldn't have hurt. That's because, when you put the incredible special effects aside (you've got to admit, watching NYC getting flooded out is pretty enjoyable), The Day After Tomorrow has nothing. The entire cast is terrible (with the exception of the always-talented Gyllenhaal...and even he struggles here), though considering the cobbled-together mess that Emmerich and co-writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff have handed in, you can't blame them. Early on in watching The Day After Tomorrow, I felt a chill come over me. Not because the grand CGI storms had me in awe or because of the freezing temperatures onscreen, but because I've finally realized that this is what the Hollywood blockbuster has come to. Even for Roland Emmerich, who has admittedly never made a great film, but who has always managed to entertain me, things have become frosted over. Tomorrow resorts to using the same old tired plot devices and destruction, plus the end oozes with unbearably cheesy false sentimentality. You can tell that Emmerich does not care about this film. He's just thrown crap at the screen in the effort that he'll fool the masses into paying their hard-earned cash for a cheap thrill or two. However disgustingly, his plan has worked. What ever happened to vibrant, colorful summer cinema? That art form is nearly extinct. Thank God for Sam Raimi and Steven Spielberg. --Courtesy of REELPICKS.CJB.NET-- email this review to a friend
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