| (07.26) | Lady in the Water  |
| (05.21) | Da Vinci Code, The  |
| (05.06) | United 93  |
| (02.05) | King Kong  |
| (01.29) | Syriana |
| (01.24) | Walk the Line |
| (01.05) | Chronicles of Narnia, The: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe  |
| (01.02) | Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire |
| (12.30) | Jarhead |
| (12.27) | Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit |
| (12.05) | randy: Polar Express, The |
| (12.02) | Geoff: Polar Express, The |
| (07.27) | Jen: Lady in the Water |
| (07.27) | Justin: Lady in the Water |
| (07.12) | Sarah: Da Vinci Code, The |
| (05.25) | Chris: Da Vinci Code, The |
| (05.25) | Acceler8: Da Vinci Code, The |
| (05.21) | Mr Plow: Da Vinci Code, The |
| (05.11) | Sarah: United 93 |
| (05.11) | Bread: United 93 |
'Pathetic fallacy' is a literary device -- which has found a comfortable home among movies and television shows as well -- in which the status of the weather in a particular scene reflects the feelings or moods of characters within that scene. If someone is sad, it rains. If they're happy, it's sunny. If trouble is afoot, storm-clouds probably are, too.
The Day After Tomorrow is kind of like one big experiment in pathetic fallacy. And much like this particular literary device can often be, this movie is pretty clunky and uninspired. The plot involves the sudden melting of the polar ice-caps due to greenhouse gasses (and due to some really wonky and implausible science). Enormous tornadoes appear out of nowhere, the oceans rise rapidly, giving way to gigantic tidal-waves, and most of the earth enters a new ice-age.
The problem is, that aside from one or two moderately cool special-effects sequences, bad weather (even really bad weather) doesn't make for much of a story. So, the filmmakers decided that some kind of additional plot was required, and hence we have a dopey high-school kid (Jake Gyllenhaal), his "paleoclimatologist" dad (who, of course, warns everyone at the beginning of the film that a disaster is imminent if we don't curtail our production of greenhouse gasses), his mom (a doctor currently looking after a little girl with cancer -- a way overly-sentimental and otherwise pointless part of the movie), and his love-interest. If you haven't already guesses, I found most of this stuff pretty dull.
The Day After Tomorrow does have some decent, moderately entertaining special effects, especially a scene involving a giant tidal wave crashing into New York. The movie isn't exactly 'pathetic', but it's not very good.
Yes, this was a bad, bad movie.
However, the science behind it isn't completely implausible. The one thing that surprised me about the movie is that the science explaining this sudden weather change was actually quite believable (to me at least).
The polar ice caps melt, reducing the ratio of salt:water in the ocean, disrupting the trans-atlantic current. This current truly does have a huge effect on the weather (something I learned in a Fluids class a year ago).
Anyway... yes, bad movie, yet still fairly interesting at times.
"fluids class???"
i think the science makes sense, and *would* happen, just at a much slower rate!
jake's character wasn't dopey at all, he was quite smart, but the story DID suck
i don't mind a mindless effects movie once in a while, but the thing i REALLY hated about this was [possible spoiler] there was no real hero! i mean, shouldn't dennis quad have flown a stolen plane into the heart of the storm and used some of his science know-how to put an end to it all?
what the hell's so exciting about waiting out the storm? i mean, the most intense thing in the whole movie was the wolves chasing the kids, and i don't even know how a storm caused them to be turned loose...it seemingly had NOTHING to do with the weather
in other movies, i might be thinking, "how on earth could that ragtag group of heroes have possibly affected the outcome like that" but here i'm wishing that they actually DID save the day, you know?
Heh, nice observations Randy.
Yeah, by "wonky science" I was mostly referring to the timeline. And by "dopey" I didn't necessarily mean 'dumb'... it was more of an "Aww, gee-whiz and shucks" kinda dopey.
Not that good of a film :-)
I liked it
yes, it wasn't a great movie, but I'm a sucker for watching movies that show a lot of cool special effects and manage to not be too Go America.
I guess its one of those movies that some will like and some will hate.
okay this movie was very bad, but it was a good bad. I had a great time watching it, partly because me and my friends made fun of it the whole time. Favite Quote "All us Canadians were fine, we just put on another sweater".
I wanted to see this for the longest time..now that I have, i regret it and want the 2.25 hours that i spent watching it of my life back...
It sucked..it was astory with no real ending..like randy said..where is the fun in waiting out the storm? WTF...