So basically here's the deal. In order to keep my creative juices flowing, once a week every monday I'm going to update my journal andreview a random movie from my shelf or from among the many that I've had the chance to see. Please be gentle and understand these are my opinions and don't make them fact!

This Week's Review: The Day After Tomorrow

Premise:

Due to global warming and melting ice caps a catastrophic series of events unfolds which herald a potential threat to the world's climate. Character Jack Hall played by Dennis Quaid has the trouble of trying to convince everyone around him that the world is basically on the verge of a new ice age and the shit is about to hit the fan. Meanwhile his son, while a certifiable genius in his own right, is struggling in New York. Sam Hall, played by Jake Gyllenhall, was attending an academic competition with his buddies from school, while also trying to impress one of the females in his group Laura played by Emmy Chapman.

Plot:

The movie starts out with Jack and his two scientific partners studying the ice in Antarctica. While performing some routine drilling, a large portion of the ice that they are working on breaks free, prompting amazement and dread from the group. Jack goes to a summit in India to address this issue at a world-health-summit where he proposes the idea and presents the model of a catastrophic climate shift based off of an incident that happened 10,000 years before. The experts including the Vice President of the US scoff and laugh at him and point out that this scenario is likely never to happen in their lifetime and jack is more or less laughed out of the sequence. Shortly thereafter we find out that Jack is in a struggling relationship with his ex wife, and his son resents him somewhat. We find out that Sam is failing one of his classes for being too smart (IE also a smartass). Jack drives his son to the airport so he can go to an Academic Decathlon of sorts with other high-school students as part of a grand national competition. We get the chance to see part of this and the attraction Sam has for the character of Laura while he competes. Around the world in the UK, Doctor Terry Rapson (played by veteran Ian Holm) of the Headland's Center begins to make a terrible discovery at his monitoring station. He contacts Jack and informs him that he believes the doomsday scenario of a major climate shift is not only possible but it's happening right as they speak. Storms begin to grow all over the world, and this becomes even more evident when tornadoes touch down in downtown LA. LA is all but completely destroyed by these tornadoes, and the National Weather service scrambles to figure out what is going on.

For the first time in the movie it feels like people are starting to listen to Jack, but not completely. Meanwhile a massive series of storms are forming over 3 parts of the world: one in Canada, Scotland, and Siberia. The storms have very massive power behind them, and are rapidly cooling the world around them. Knowing the storm is dangerous the British Royal Family is evacuated, and is seen flying into what looks like the eye of a massive hurricane. The helicopters rescuing them suddenly freeze up and fall out of the sky, and everyone inside is frozen solid where they sat. Doctor Terry Rapson calls up Jack and informs him that the people froze due to an extremely rapid cooling of the air, past -150F. Jack runs his own models and discovers that these storms are pulling air from the highest part of the atmosphere down to the earth and not giving it a chance to heat up, and these storms are going to get big and bad in a matter of days.

In new york the storm has dropped several feet of rain on the city and flooding is beginning. Sam decides to leave the safety of his friend's ritzy apartment and make a break for the train stations to try to go after one of his friend's younger brothers. Upon seeing the rising water, and seeing everything happening around him, he decides to make a break for higher ground. The team of teenagers make their way to the not too far off central library of Manhattan. Soon a massive storm surge of water pulled in by the mega-storm sends a massive tidal-wave through the streets which forces the teens to make a fast paced escape, during which Laura scratches her leg on a bumper of a submerged car and bleeds into sewage infested water. The team manages to make it just in the nick of time as a good portion of the lower library is now under-water. Sam wishes to communicate with his father to find out what is going on, and he goes on a little swim to figure this out. Jack informs sam of the dangers of the storm and that it's going to get quite bad and advises him to stay indoors and burn anything he can to stay warm especially when the eye hits. Sam nearly drowns to obtain this information before eventually his phone is submerged and he has to swim out. The temperature drops rapidly in new york, the rain turning to snow, and even the storm surge waters freeze over. Once the waters freeze, several of the survivors decide to leave the Library against Sam's advice and trudge out into the snow and ice. Sam and the few remaining survivors climb into a large comfortable room with a massive fireplace and begin burning books to stay warm, much to the dismay of a couple of the survivors.

Jack now has to address the issue of the growing storms to the government yet again, and is brought before the joint chiefs and the President. He advises the government to evacuate all the states below a certain line he draws on a map of the US and suggests that all those above the line it's far too late for. After leaving the Vice President scoffs at this and is shot down by the rest of the table. The government begins to evacuate. Jack begins the long trek to New York to rescue his son, having to move over land since it's too cold and dangerous to get there by vehicle or fly.

Opinions:

PRO: The movie was plausible in the sense that many of the sequences I can see happening in this movie. The film's director and actors made you feel concern for the well-being of the characters involved and feel emotion for them. The animation sequences were good for their time, and the movie did a superb job at casting.

CON: Alright here's where I get to chomp my teeth into the "bits" of this movie and eviscerate them. First, despite the ever growing danger around everyone the movie runs fairly dry. It drags on in places and feels rushed in others, especially if you watch it on certain TV channels and not the legitimate movie release.

The film's first big mistake that bothers me is during the flooding sequence; the storm surge in New York is shown swelling up and practically over the Statue of Liberty. This is a massive wall of water carried by the force of this supposed super-storm. In the film Deep Impact the statue was ripped to pieces by the super-wave. Here the water just sort of splashes over it harmlessly. My issue here is while the statue IS metal, I'm of the opinion that with that much water moving around it especially since it's hollow the statue would have been at least ripped from it's mount and pulled under. Ive watched footage of the Tsunami's in Japan and seen massive walls of water tear stronger buildings/structures than that statue to bits.

My second beef with the film is during the sequence where Americans are fleeing to Mexico to escape the storm. A news reporter shows people lined up at the Mexican border and being denied entry by the Mexican military. In the next scene a group of people use cutters to cut a length of chain-link fence and masses of people are crossing the Rio Grande into Mexico. The reporter even goes on to comment "In a dramatic reversal of illegal immigration, thousands of Americans are crossing the border illegally into Mexico" (or something akin to that). Now after years of very aggressive border patrols by the united states, and gunning down many people that run our borders I would figure Mexico would relish this opportunity to return the favor. If the Mexican Army is patrolling the border and we (USA) is crossing in illegally then they have every means to just gun "us" down.

My third beef is with the sequence in the library. Sam gets the idea to burn books to keep warm, which prompts whining from the librarian and another library patron. The same patron and one of sam's classmates even get in a debate over weather or not to burn Niche which comically is brought to an end when their classmate suggests burning an entire section on Tax Law. Now I'd like to point out that paper and books burn at approximately 451F degrees yet it burns very fast. Paper does not burn long at all, and in the grand scene of things what they are burning is a massive pile of kindling. It's not exactly known how long they are in that library but this is a terrible and illogical choice. Depicted throughout every library sequence is at least some implement of wood. There are hordes of wooden chairs in the main lobby, desks, tables, and as my roommate Seph pointed out even the frigging banister's of the staircases. I have to say that it would have been far more reasonable if they would have just chopped up one of the tables or chairs (as sam does later but only to make snow shoes) and burned them. They wouldn't have had to burn many other books, and if they did well there's that entire section of Tax Law they wont be needing.

I can't say my other beefs with the film without spoiling plot, but that pretty much sums it up!