The Day After Tomorrow

Memo to all the climatologists: stop whinging. You didn't hear the marine biologists complaining that Finding Nemo contained talking fish. Similarly, NASA didn't jump on the bandwagon to moan about the narrowing of the window of time in Apollo 13. And while most of the scientific community is in general agreement that the chances of a volcano erupting over McArthur Park are less than remote, if not impossible, this didn't stop Volcano from being a fun - if remarkably far-fetched - cinematic experience. We've done our reading, and we're all well aware that the condensing of time in Roland Emmerich's latest escapade is more than a little extreme, but if all that happened within the film took place over a large number of years - as you quite rightly say that it would - it would certainly be more realistic, but probably not particularly interesting.

The simple fact of the matter is that The Day After Tomorrow is a fun and remarkably silly film that has any number of messages - some global, some personal - that can be taken away, but the moment that you begin to take it too seriously, it loses all sense of appeal. For all the portentous warnings of 'it could really happen' and the current Bush-related topical interest, this was never going to work as a human interest story, or a dark morality tale. Whatever its true intentions may have been, it's wound up as science fiction with a capital 'f', and should be treated as such.

Dennis Quaid is Professor Jack Hall, a climatologist who Knows Something That No One Else Will Believe Until It's Too Late. This more or less sums up the first hour of the film: the opening scene in the Antarctic provides a visual treat as a crack appears in the ice, providing a portent of things to come, both in a meteorological sense and in terms of the collapse of society. Back home, Quaid is attempting to clear up his difficult relationship with brilliant but estranged son Sam (Jake Gyllenhall), when the weather starts getting crazy. Quaid tries to argue with a senior politician (Twin Peaks' Kenneth Walsh) who bears an uncanny physical resemblance to Dick Cheney, but of course his words appear to be falling on deaf ears. Before we know it, hurricanes are devastating the Western Atlantic, Los Angeles is blasted with a tornado, and an enormous tidal wave is heading for New York. Cue the nice people at ILM (or the appropriate equivalent), who drum up some admittedly impressive visual effects - a post-millennium 'Twister', with fewer cows.

One of the central problems with the film is that it spends its first hour trying to introduce far too many characters, with the net result that we care about fewer of them than Emmerich (who penned the screenplay) evidently hopes. The story darts and weaves all over the world - and, on one or two occasions, above it - with the same breakneck pace that spoiled Independence Day: you don't really have time to properly register what's going on and how it's going to affect the people concerned before the snow starts falling. As the narrative progresses and the body count begins its inevitable climb, the subplots begin to converge and gradually disappear until you're left with only a few of the original strands, and the second half is considerably more streamlined, if still occasionally struggling to tie up all its loose ends.

Acting is passable: Quaid does his best to juggle hardline scientist trying to save the world with regretful would-be family man. Over in New York, the delegation of Dashing Teen Actors play their roles admirably, if by-the-numbers; you can sense the enjoyment in the energy they put into each performance, but they're hampered by a less-than-enthralling script with no real surprises or innovation. The film tries hard to be moving without sentimental, but it's left to Ian Holm, as jaded scientist Terry Rapson, to provide the most human moments. Holm has rarely been better in recent years than he is here, balancing pathos with resignation, and providing the only dialogue that slides above mediocre, in scenes that - at last! - contain British actors in an American blockbuster who don't look even remotely silly.

If the first two thirds of the movie are all about choice, fate and the gathering storm, it's left to the final act to wrap up with a couple of visually slick but utterly ridiculous set pieces that serve no real purpose other than to test our characters to the brink of their instincts for survival. It's sad that you find yourself laughing where you know that you should be on the edge of your seat, and it's just then that you're reminded that you can't take too much from this particular motion picture experience - Emmerich won't let you. As the last reel draws to its vaguely moralistic conclusion (jumping on the "I learned something this week" bandwagon with a ferocity not seen since He-Man, but cleverly mixing the messages so that what you actually learn is, to an extent, entirely up to you) the light dawns and you realise that all this time you've actually been watching the biggest B-movie since Independence Day. What's even more ironic is that Emmerich probably didn't intend this one to be quite so silly either - but there's no doubt that if nothing else he's achieved a visual tour-de-force that does nothing particularly new or groundbreaking, but that nonetheless accomplishes it with considerable style. Paraphrasing Roald Dahl, The Day After Tomorrow contains the same glacial beauty as one of the melting icebergs - but unlike the iceberg, there is very little beneath the surface.

(Sunday, 6th June 2004)