Don't believe the hype - The Day After Tomorrow is an average movie...

Friday, May 28, 2004

Hi y'all! I went to KLCC this afternoon (5 p.m.) to go and watch "The Day After Tomorrow" (TDAT). It was raining heavily at that time. Luckily I didn't have to face the brunt of the rain, coz when it REALLY rained, I was inside the Putra LRT station. Consequently, I had to bring an umbrella to KLCC, which made me look like and old man. Hahaha... maybe I am an old man.

Anyways, luckily I didn't pay to watch the movie, coz it was not a good movie at all. Yes, you heard me right - I didn't pay. It was free. Why? Coz I won an SMS contest for Hotlink club members. I got 2 free tickets to watch TDAT. But I didn't have anyone to watch it with! So, I was fortunate to meet my schoolmate who was coincidentally there when I have just collected my free tickets. So I just gave the extra ticket to him.

Basically, TDAT was not that good. I can say that it's an average movie, a movie that is saved from obscurity by special effects and the fact that it's a disaster movie. Well, you know, every movie that shows mankind facing disastrous events, no matter how bad the movie is, will still be good enough to be called average. At least in my terms...

TDAT generally revolves around the world facing another ice age, which was brought about by the melting of ice at the North Pole. Due to this, the ocean level begins to rise, resulting in many storms and tornados forming all over the world. And the country that faces the most risk is, you guessed it - USA. Why must America always happen to be in the middle of many spectacular events in movies? One can only wonder...

This cataclysm was predicted by a scientist, Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), who expected it to happen in at least 100 years, but actually it will happen in 2 days' time, hence the title The Day After Tomorrow. And so it goes that the US will try to save every one of its citizen. And amid all this, there happens to be the story too of how Jack's son is trying to survive in the face of all these events.

What the movie lacks most is the character development part. The characters presented in the movie were not able to develop their personalities enough to impress us viewers. Thus, I can see that the movie do not have a main plot, i.e. do not follow a single person. Instead, it takes a general view of the whole incident, switching back and forth from one character's story to another. This is all well and good, if not for the inability of the actors to develop their characters and make us viewers grow attached to their personalities. You can only look at how Armageddon (a very good disaster movie) handles this job to see how it is supposed to be done.

And the special effects? OK I guess. There are some scenes which look illogical, and sometimes the characters also do not fit well into the special effects, i.e. nampak sangat the waves, tornadoes and wolves are all computer graphics. But OK la, the special effects serve the movie well enough to be believable.

So, all in all, I give it a so-so rating: 3 out of 5 stars. Next movie to watch is on this Saturday, 10.30 a.m. Laws of Atraction, starring Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore. It's a romantic comedy I think. But... *gasp*! A review just gave it a 2/5 rating! Is it that bad? Aaahh... what do I care? I get to watch it for free again! :) All because I won a contest at www.cinemaonline.com.my. Anybody wanna watch it with me? I got one extra ticket and again, no one to accompany me...

Posted by Nikman Shah at 12:14 am
|

***