The Day After The Day After Tomorrow

Rating: 5/10 (4 December 2009)

Boy, was this movie a BORE. Sure, the effects are great and you'll enjoy the roller coaster ride (or video game) segments, but none of these moments generate that "wow" sensation you get when your stomach drops. Everything happens so quickly in some cases which diminishes the impact. A lot happens in this movie, perhaps too much. The back story is achingly awful. The script is pretty terrible. And the cloying moments of heroism as well as the never ending doom snapping at the heels of the heroes quickly become tedious. Trust me, you won't care about the characters very much; I sure didn't. This is a real shame since the key to the success of "The Poseidon Adventure" was the pathos (i.e., Shelley Winters). Everything going on here is so ridiculously unbelievable it's impossible to take anything the characters say or do seriously; consequently they're all pretty much dispensable cardboard characters (which they certainly were in "The Poseidon Adventure", but the stereotypes were more interesting and there was more emphasis on depicting things realistically). Sadly this seems to be the film maker's "style" (reflected as well in the too too similar, "The Day After Tomorrow"). The sappy ending felt like a bad case of indigestion. The music sucked (we could have used a solid, John Williams score here). The production felt like a made-for-cable SciFi Channel movie on steroids, little more than that. I can see how a series based on this dreck would be poised to take the place of "Battlestar Galactica". (YAWN) And then we can get all up in the business of the survivors in their Brave New World. I will be avoiding at all costs!