Jack makes a daring attempt to rescue his son and his friends who are stuck in New York, who have to survive not only a massive wave, but freezing cold temperatures that could possibly kill them. The movie argues vehemently that we need to combat global warming as quickly as possible to avoid the apocalyptic consequences on display in the film.But the film conveys this message in ways that many find so hyperbolized it becomes nearly laughable, because in the story, consequences some scientists argue might result from global warming arise almost instantaneously rather than over the course of decades or even centuries. Critiques of The Day After Tomorrow point to its exaggerated claims regarding global warming not as a way to highlight the film’s environmental ideologies but to highlight one of its biggest weaknesses.
In fact, the environmental message is all but lost because it rests on such a poor interpretation of climatology.Instead, critics valorize the film’s spectacular effects and faithful execution of the eco-disaster formula. A surface reading of the environmental politics on display in the film, then, deconstructs the film’s environmental leanings. For example, in an IMDB review of The Day After Tomorrow, Roger Ebert calls the film “silly” but “scary” and enjoys the adherence to formula while noting the lack of scientific grounding for the cataclysm on display: Of the science in this movie I have no opinion.
I am sure global warming is real, and I regret that the Bush administration rejected the Kyoto Treaty, but I doubt that the cataclysm, if it comes, will come like this. It makes for a fun movie, though. Especially the parts where Americans become illegal immigrants in Mexico, and the vice president addresses the world via the Weather Channel. The Day After Tomorrow is ridiculous, yes, but sublimely ridiculous — and the special effects are stupendous.Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian agrees, in another IMDB review of the film, asserting that: There are some great special effects showing New York under the waves, with hints of Spielberg's AI and, of course, Planet of the Apes. You have to get through an awful lot of terrible dialogue and acting, however, plus a lot of fantastically insincere waffle about the environment, to get to those spectacular scenes.
I felt the waters of silliness and boredom close over my head. These critiques of the bad science driving the ecological disasters in the film are supported by the multiple plot holes and revealing mistakes in the film, including an impossible yet heroic journey led by father and climatologist, Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), in which Jack and two colleagues tramp through seventy miles of sub-zero blizzards in less than two days’ time.In a review in Spirituality and Practice Magazine, Frederick and Mary Ann Brussat assert, “Whatever you think of the scientific explanations given for the phenomenon, the movie deserves praise for making one thing very clear: humans, especially in the industrialized countries, are the evil-doers who are responsible for the destruction of the good earth. ” For the Brussats, ecological messages, no matter how ineffectively they are presented, serve to educate the public, showing viewers that humans have contributed to environmental devastation.Yet the Brussats use a religious envelope for couching their critique and invoke evil and apocalyptic visions that, again, veil the environmental politics of the film. They, like The Day After Tomorrow, hyperbolize their assertions and, therefore, may invalidate them because they rest on irrational emotional arguments rather than rational and logical evidence.
Director Roland Emmerich’s assertion that the film’s climate-change exaggerations were intended as a way to add to its dramatic appeal points to another consequence of the “sublimely ridiculous” ecological disasters: large box office sales.All of the 258 reviews on the Internet Movie Database admit that the environmental catastrophes on display in the film are spectacularly powerful, drawing audiences who crave the entertainment value that a highly special effects-driven disaster movie provides. The special effects paid off: The Day After Tomorrow grossed $528 million worldwide and earned a stunning $85. 8 million during its opening weekend.
