Film Note - The Day After Tomorrow

The Day After Tomorrow

There are some movies that are definitively embedded in a genre. I can say with a straight face, "Resident Evil is the best flesh-eating zombie movie out there." Now, you might accept that there are GOOD flesh-eating zombie movies, in which case, you probably want to see Resident Evil because it represents the best expression of the genre's archetype. There are other flesh-eating zombie movies - some even quite good. But most are good on the grounds by which they surprise you by defying the genre conventions. But if you just want to see a movie as close as humans have yet gotten to the Platonic ideal of the flesh-eating zombie flick, then you need to see Resident Evil. If you don't want to see such a film, then you're probably the kind of person who doesn't see the merits of flesh-eating zombie movies qua generis. If so, Resident Evil would likely be a concentrated dose of pure repulsiveness. Since the genre strikes you as bad, the genre's superlatively generic film will also strike you as bad.

Now, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that The Day After Tomorrow is the BEST disaster movie. But it's a really good disaster movie. Only The Poseidon Adventure keeps me from nominating it as the best disaster movie ever, and that's not a fair comparison. Yes, there's the obligatory marital difficulty (ever notice that young lovers meet in action movies, old couples fight against the backdrop of apocalypse)? But they keep it to a refreshing minimum - just enough to keep people who can't stomach a pure dollop of unleavened disaster in the theaters. It may not be the Law and Order of disaster movies (but how great it would it be to have a definitive Law and Order version of every major film genre?), but it's about as close as you can hope for a major Hollywood film to get. Drain it of any more sap, and you'd probably lose the necessary special-effects funding.

All in all, I enjoyed it immensely. I have a weakness for disaster movies. I doubt everyone else does. If you can stomach the death of millions as a plot device in a story about the estrangement between father and son then this is your film! Flash-frozen fun for the whole family!

If you don't like disaster movies, this probably isn't gonna' be your cup of tea. It's definitely NOT one of those movies where disaster strikes but, miraculously, nobody gets hurt.