Film review by Jules Andrews
The Day After Tomorrow
Directed by Roland Emmerich There are certain ingredients that are essential in any disaster film: bumbling bureaucrats who mishandle early reports of impending doom; penny-pinching government officials who put the bottom line before public safety; brainless citizens who, when offered escape from the disaster, race straight back into the thick of it to retrieve the pet/jewellery/briefcase they left behind; and a brave-but-flawed hero who saves the world — even though his against-all-common-sense heroic deeds should have had him killed five times over. This film has it all — bar the world being saved. And that is the twist that makes The Day After Tomorrow tantalising viewing. Global warming is a fact. A more recently learned fact is that the Arctic region is warming at 10 times the rate of the rest of the planet. It is also a fact that without the United States' commitment — in signature and deed — to the Kyoto Greenhouse Protocol the pace of warming will continue to accelerate. The global cataclysm depicted in The Day After Tomorrow is a fantastic interpretation of one scientific theory on how that warming will shape the future of the planet. The film begins with scenes not too unfamiliar to earth residents in recent years — freak weather occurrences pounding major population centres. Two-kilo hailstones pound Tokyo, a blizzard engulfs New Delhi while tornados tear up Los Angeles. Scientists at an ocean monitoring station in the USA notice that buoys measuring ocean currents in the North Atlantic are recording a sudden and steep drop in ocean temperature. This seems to confirm climatologist Jack Hall's (Dennis Quaid) worst fear: Greenland is melting, and the sudden dumping of near- freezing fresh water into the ocean has disrupted the warm North Atlantic current, the inevitable result of which will be a new- ice age across Europe and North America. However, once the weather re-alignment has started it is already too late to act. The film's characters do not prevent the disaster, nor save the world. All they can do is survive the initial onslaught until they are able to escape, along with other scattered remnants of the US population, as refugees into Latin America. The final defeat suffered by the United States in this film is a major break from past efforts by German Director Roland Emmerich. His most notorious work, Independence Day (1996) is so ferociously pro-US, pro-military and xenophobic it could well have been scripted by the CIA. Earth is attacked by aliens but is saved from annihilation by no less than the US President himself, who leads the airforce into glorious battle before declaring the establishment of a New World Order. (The only stench the audience was spared in Independence Day was that of the cigars which were constantly being chewed, lit and puffed on screen each time an American kicked some alien arse. So blatant was this "real men smoke" advertisement it's a wonder the grubby handprints of the tobacco CEOs weren't visible on the celluloid.) Emmerich's ultimate motive in making this film is not in doubt — he's out to make a buck from the millions who rush out to see every high-tech special effects-laden Hollywood blockbuster. But in the process Emmerich will also re-ignite discussion on the destruction of the environment. This process has been somewhat buried from sight at the same time as being hastened by George W's wars in the Middle East. The British Guardian has gone so far as to suggest this film may go against Bush in the upcoming Presidential Election. That article is proudly featured on The Day After Tomorrow's website, along with a global warming facts slide show and links to environmental and scientific organisations. This has the potential to be a provoking film. Get out your $14, suspend your logic and enjoy it. Then go out and take action before it really is too late. The Day After Tomorrow is rated M and is screening in cinemas everywhere.* * * http://www.thedayaftertomorrow.com