 THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW
Roland Emmerich, USA 2004
6.5
to my eyes, Roland Emmerich is Michael Bay without the arrogance and the A-list sluts stars (Emmerich gets Dennis Quaid). his stories are filled with emotionally empty characters thrown into some type of adventure setting. i have a hard time trusting a filmmaker and the story he's telling when the only possible moments of emotions are used to cover up the artificiality of his characters. thank god we have Jake Gyllenhaal to follow for some time here, though. he injects his characters with some depth and personal space. his is the only story i cared about (also big thanks to wide-eyed Emmy Rossum). his father, Dennis Quaid? not so much. the film's a pretty closed up, sterile environment (filled with implausible plot holes--oh, the plot hole--they made damn sure i didn't get into the film for more than a minute at a time:) Emmerich's characters' sole purpose in life is to serve the plot points. go from a to b to c. you don't exist if you don't have something that could be used in a line somewhere down the road; and, if you're not one of the two leads, your existence is limited to that extent only. these characters don't have identities outside of the framework of the film. it's paint-by-the-numbers filmmaking. the lowest of the low on the art ladder, imo. highly predictable. but being an action flick, you'd think this would at least have some outstanding special effects. well, there are. but things start out surprisingly bad with some obvious effects. but things get straightened out as we go along and we get some pretty spectacular stuff. i don't regret watching the film. hell, i'd even watch it again to see if it holds up a bit more than the first time. it was okay. i'm just tired of films falling below certain standards of storytelling, is all.
Posted by Anonymous | 1:58 PM
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THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW
