Day after 3000AD, more likely

Rating: Null/10 (6 June 2004)

I went along to see this movie with low expectations (`Independence Day' was asinine and `The Patriot' had all kinds of problems apart from Mel Gibson) but director Roland Emmerich is a versatile fellow, and this time he gets the special effects, computer graphics and stunt people to put on a great show. I loved the water foaming through the canyons of Manhattan (eerily reminiscent of the dust clouds of September 11th), the Russian freighter drifting past the New York Public Library (until it grounds on submerged vehicles), the LA twisters like busy vacuum cleaners and the snap-frozen effects. And of course poor old Statute of Liberty was very evocatively decorated with icicles, with an upended oil tanker there to remind us of our fatal addiction to fossil fuels. I was a bit miffed the director didn't take out our iconic Opera House, but I guess he's been there and done that.
Unfortunately it is de rigeur in this kind of blockbuster to have a dumb plot, sometimes romantic (as in `Titanic') but usually of the rescue variety. It is not really possible for anyone to save the world here, so mild-mannered climate modeler Denis Quaid, about the only person in the world who knows what's happening, is allowed off to brave the New Jersey Turnpike in an SUV to rescue his 17 year old son Jake Gyllenhaal from the New York Public Library. He has to do the last 90 miles or so on foot, with two brave companions  Scott of the Antarctic stuff, although I don't think Captain Oates fell into an upmarket shopping mall anywhere in New Jersey. There is a really maudlin sub-plot involving Denis's doctor wife and a plucky little cancer sufferer which could easily have been deleted.
As is often the case in spectaculars of this sort, the supporting characters get a chance to show they are much better actors than the leads. Ian Holm as the British climatologist and his two companions are examples, though Jake Gyllenhaal, if a bit old for 17 (he's 23), did manage a reasonably restrained and dignified performance. Denis Quaid was so low-key I had to keep reminding myself he was the hero. One thing about Charlie Heston, he never left you in any doubt about that.
There is also a basic problem about the science here. Global Warning is the classic boiling frog example; because it is happening so slowly we are unaware of it, except through scientific observation. The suggestion put forward here is that the climate could be subject to an abrupt change through progressive melting of the polar icecaps producing cold fresh water which somehow interferes with the flow of warm ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream. I'm prepared to believe the inhabitants of low-lying Pacific atolls might be paddling in their huts in 50 years time, but snap- freezing the Northern Hemisphere in a few days is really stretching it. Weather is an extremely complex phenomenon and runs in patterns; abrupt changes in those patterns are unknown (barring meteorite strikes and volcanic eruptions). Previous ice ages have all had run-ups of thousands of years.
Still, I'm sure Roland and the producers don't care  after all this is popular entertainment  and I did enjoy the Chaney like Vice President getting his comeuppance. There was also something rather droll about the US having to cancel Mexico's debt to permit the entry of US refugees to Mexico. Also, however wrong the science, the troglodyte Right who don't think Global Warming is a problem will be irritated beyond measure by the film. Ah, the power of the box office!