Bad for the environment

Rating: Null/10 (29 October 2004)

I liked this movie as a disaster film. On the other hand, the disaster in a film like the Poseidon adventure was just a freak of nature. The Day After Tomorrow derives much of its interest from social concern over the very real consequences of global warming. Unfortunately, it doesn't reciprocate that concern with credible science or non-formulaic storytelling. Amid climatic chaos, the story focuses on the trials of one family--Dennis Quaid as a busy climatologist, Sela Ward, his doctor wife, and their son Jake Gyllenhaal, a high school student who goes to New York City to compete in a quiz competition. Quaid has been so busy running around the globe measuring the effects of global warming that he hasn't had adequate time to bond with his son. Once in New York, Gyllenhaal is less interested in questions about Aztecs then in whether he can score with his fetching fellow contestant, Emmy Rossum. Being the shy intellectual type, he spends the first half of the picture staring at his father resentfully and at the girl balefully. He's wounded and shy. But nothing that a little global disaster can't fix.
The ostensible politics of the film are clearly 'liberal' At an environmental conference in India, the vice president (a Dick Cheney stand in) questions Quaid about his motives for making 'sensational' claims about global warming. As a political film, however, I wonder if this depiction of the effects of global warming actually do more harm than good for those concerned about the buildup of greenhouse gasses. Yes, global warming could cause the polar ice caps to melt and screw up the flow of the gulf stream and even cause a new ice age. But what's the deal with a tornado whose vortex sends down killer temperatures that act more like Freddy Kruger than a natural phenomenon. This stuff is so outlandish that nobody can take it seriously--or worse, actually give fodder to politically right-leaning claims that global warning is all hype. But don't let that worry you, even as millions freeze to death. The important thing is to spend more time with your family.