The Day After Tomorrow

Going to watch The Day After Tomorrow and expecting to be educated is like going to Disney World for a lesson in Advanced English Grammar. You don’t go there to engage your brain. You go to have a good time. And it was, in theory, a good time; despite the fact my disbelief was suspended a bit too far and despite the fact the director was ambitious enough to hope I would walk out of a movie where more than half the earth’s population is killed feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. I mean, how much can one hope for when at the end of 2 hours, the nation is destroyed and the hope for mankind’s future lies with third world countries? What kind of movie preaches against global warming and closes the curtain with a glorious shot of Mexico City (that bastion of environmentalism)?

Need I mention the wolves? Three-fourths of the way through the movie, as if the world being destroyed by every natural disaster known to man isn’t climactic enough, the producers throw in a pack of “ravenous” wolves (which are an awkward blend of velociraptor and Stooge) to “add to the drama.” What if the giant twisters wrecking L.A. weren’t enough? “Yes Mr. President, California has just slipped into the ocean and Manhattan was just demolished by a tsunami; but sir – your insulin medicine has run out!!!”

All in all, it was fun and there were plenty of ooh and ahh moments, but I did notice my rear going numb several times, and that’s never a good sign.