TDAT- I gotta give it a cold shoulder

Rating: Null/10 (2 June 2004)

This review contains some spoilers.
Well I gave The Day After Tomorrow 4 stars: one for Jake Gyllenhaal (why, oh why couldn't they have prolonged the scene where he was stripping out of those cold, wet clothes???) and three for the special effects. Watching LA get ripped up was... well, just cool. And it was nice to see the streets of NYC get a good wash. As for the plot, though... Yeesh. Clichés up the yin-yang. The general format of the movie, the dad/son schtick, the ignored scientist with one obscure supporter pitted against the disbelieving plebians, the teenage geniuses (whole teams of them, no less- how many of those are there in the US anyway? I thought the education system down there was in shambles!), the token homeless guy (with a dog), the self-sacrificing sidekick, the heroics performed by someone unaware of the looming death and getting plucked from its clutches by the love interest, etc, etc, ad nauseum.
But some of it got laid on extra thick. The vice-president was eerily reminiscent of the political leadership that's actually in place in the States right now-- a Republican idiot more concerned with looking out for the interests of his big business campaign supporters than the environment (or the lives of the electorate to whom he's *supposed* to be accountable, for that matter). Personally I found his transformation at the end dubious at best. I *loved* the American swarm of immigrants into Mexico and the closing of the border, it was just delicious. Imagine what it'll do for the wages in Mexico! For years they've been slaving away like chumps producing goods for the US that they couldn't afford themselves.
Then there was the guy in the library clutching at his old Bible, insisting that if they were facing "the end of Western civilization" and he could only save one piece of it, his reverence for the written word compelled him to save... the Bible. Buddy... check any hotel nightstand on your way out of town; there are way smaller copies that would be easier to carry and not as delicate. Besides, considering all the villainy that people over the centuries have carried out, claiming religious doctrine as their endorsement, I think in a whole library you could find a better piece of literature. Maybe the Boyscouts Handbook? Anyway, was there anything in that Bible about an ice age, among all the "accurate predictions?" If not, you gotta stop clinging to it. No deity saved your butt. Fire did. Boyscout Handbook tells you how to make fire. Drop the Bible, take the Boyscout Handbook. On a lighter note, while it was nice that Canada was at least mentioned in this movie (thanks for nothing, Independance Day), they didn't indicate whether there could have been survivors. I say it's a moot point. OF COURSE there were Canadian survivors! While New Yorkers were waking up the the worst weather in 10,000 years, Canadians looked out their windows, and our first thought: "great, eh, more snow. Good thing I didn't put my shovel in the shed yet." Our second thought? "Looks like the hockey season's gonna run long, eh?" We probably just dug out, drank some beer, and noticed there was a really big new rink south of the border waiting to be skated on.