The Day After Tomorrow - A Dangerous Piece of Environmental Hysteria

Rating: Null/10 (7 June 2004)

Roland Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow' presumes that if the ocean convection current that cycles warm water north from the Equator to the North Atlantic, where it cools and gets cycled back down to the Equator, gets `broken', Northern Europe will no longer be receiving warmth transferred from the Equator and will fall into a new Ice Age. This also means that the Equator will heat up, since it won't be receiving cooler water cycled down from the North.
This, thankfully, is a big load -- at least as depicted in this film. Don't get me wrong; Global Warming is a very serious issue that requires further research on how it can be more efficiently controlled. I'm not remotely enough of an educated environmentalist to argue the issue vigorously with someone who is, but what little I do know, reinforced with a hefty dollop of gut feeling, strongly suggests to me that it's the right course. Hey, at least I am willing to admit my relative ignorance. Most environmental groups on the other hand are sadly and grossly misinformed about environmental science and, since they also simultaneously carry many other, stupid agendas (like antiglobalization), the last thing they want to do is bring science to the table, simply because it will upset their carefully constructed propagandized house of cards. The environmental movement is simply chocked full of nuts, some of which were undoubtedly behind the disaster that is The Day After Tomorrow.' I fear this film will hurt the cause far more than it will help.
This leads to an obvious question: Is Emmerich (who got the chief writing credit here) one of these nuts, or was he simply looking for another cheap excuse to satisfy his New York City destruction fetish? Or did one of his story advisors deliberately feed him misinformation?
With most popcorn flicks I might be inclined to just shut up about the science and take the movie on its own terms, as long as it adheres to whatever narrative and physical rules established up front, but this is supposed to be a serious environmental disaster film, a caveat to all us polluters and exploiters of Mother Nature. That the earth is warming up is no longer in doubt. Everyone at this point (even the greenhouse `skeptics' of the 90's) agree that there is a definite warming trend. But the scenario presented by Emmerich is based on theories that have been debunked long ago, depicted so very ludicrously they could almost serve as parody.

Hell, this film does for the environmentalists what The Life of David Gale' did for death penalty abolitionists. Sanctimonious political hooey, all of it. And what rebuttal does the movie present? A pseudo-Dick Cheney babbling about the fragility of the American economy. Oh, and Americans illegally immigrating into Mexico. Ho-ho.
This isn't supposed to be Ferngully' after all. THAT's why I'm looking for some logic and an at least rudimentary scientific basis.

THAT's why I get angry when Jake Gyllenhaal doesn't loose his hand to frostbite after being outside on the ship with no glove.

THAT's why I get angry when our protagonists can outrun a freeze during which the temperature drops ten degrees a second.

THAT's why I get angry when an entire Ice Age comes and goes in four days.

THAT's why I get angry when the cancer kid has to wait for an ambulance even though he's really only on oxygen.

THAT's why I get angry when it never occurs to anyone in the library to burn the wooden furniture instead of valuable, historically significant books

THAT's why I get angry when it never occurs to the trekkers that left the library to simply enter another building when the storm gets really bad.

Of course I didn't initially consider The Day After Tomorrow' to be some sort of scientifically-based anti-pollution story. I mean, I sure didn't read any Lord of the Rings' reviews that stated `This film is a poorly-veiled commentary on the modern use of magic rings in military operations, damn it to hell.' Having seen The Day After Tomorrow,' though, it does seem true that Emmerich is torn between wanting to save America and wanting to level New York. And that Jack Hall fellow, the one I believe was the hero, with the son, he did have a fairly unsubtle speech to make: `Whether we survive depends on whether human beings can learn from our mistakes. What say you, my son?'
Donnie Darko: `I survived, thanks to the books at my local library!'
Ok, just as a thought experiment let's assume that this indeed was merely supposed to be a stupid blockbuster and see if it succeeds on that level. For instance, let us compare this film to the ultimate twister epic (because both had tornados in it), a little independent film by the name of Twister, starring that very wooden actor, Will Paxton. Or Bill Patton. No matter. While I never was a big fan of Twister', at least it built tension -- much like a good orgasm -- liberally spreading progressively bigger-getting tornadoes all the way through its taut narrative. The Day After Tomorrow,' however, blows it's wad far too early and then timidly asks the audience to cuddle for the next hour and a half. It's a classic case of premature tornado ejaculation.
Now if the tornados had faces like that of the Master Control Program from Tron' and spoke in deep, falsetto voices before devouring L.A., that would be a different story.
Hell, at least that volcano in Volcano' was one hell of a huge volcano, if you catch my drift. Also, I like to say `volcano'. Volcano. Sorry, I'll stop now.
Volcano.
I don't say this often, but screw Emmerich. Screw Emmerich up his sanctimonious, political, German arse. The guy should have stuck with bad Van Damme cyborg movies or German homoerotic low-budget rape/prison dramas of the future. That's what he's good at, people.