Hate To Love It: 'The Day After Tomorrow'
- sarahkloepple
- Jul 19, 2014
- 2 min read
Nothing beats a day off school when you're growing up. When you're old enough to stay home by yourself because you're feeling "sick," the day turns into a welcome, all-day TV marathon. Such is what happened to me when I was a mere tween.
What was on TV that day, you ask? "The Day After Tomorrow." Growing up in in the Midwest, I thought I knew how scary tornadoes could be. I was so wrong, at least by Roland Emmerich's standards. He directed this 2004 disaster flick starring the always endearing Jake Gyllenhaal and the always tired-looking Dennis Quaid.
Quaid plays scientist Jack Hall, who's trying to convince the US government that global warming has reached a tipping point, and that mother nature is going to unleash a deadly wrath of fury on the planet in the form of extreme weather. This is including, but not limited to, baseball-sized hail in Japan, merciless tornadoes eating away at the city of LA and walls of water engulfing New York City.
Meanwhile, Gyllenhaal, as Jack's mopey son Sam, is trapped in NYC on a school field trip with his friends and a budding love interest (Emmy Rossum). He convinces a group of people to stay holed up in the public library until Jack can come and rescue them.
To this day, "The Day After Tomorrow" remains a box office phenomenon. It's one of the highest-grossing films in the US that isn't a sequel (or from the minds of Pixar, Disney or Marvel). But while it crushed opening day weekend, it didn't do so hot with the critics.
So why do we love it anyway? Because it's what we think movies are supposed to be about. Catastrophes laden with the end of humanity and the destruction of monstrous metropolises. You can't peel your eyes away from it, you're blown away by the special effects, you're on the edge of your seat waiting to see if Dennis Quaid will make it in time to save Jake Gyllenhaal!
But it's ultimately predictable. The big wig officials ignore the severity of an encroaching global disaster. Sam saves the girl from drowning in a giant wave of water. Jack's doctor ex-wife refuses to leave behind an immobile cancer patient. And Jack, of course, makes it to NYC (by walking in a blizzard nonetheless!) to reunite with his son.
Yet whenever "The Day After Tomorrow" airs for the 600th time on AMC, I watch it anyway. Sure, there's hardly a plot (not even a trace of a plausible one). But it's just plain fun to watch. It's hard to not be mesmerized by watching hordes of panicked Americans viciously and illegally cross the Rio on foot to make it to the safety of Mexico. It's OK to get goose bumps when you see that enormous tsunami (it almost completely covers the near 300-foot Statue of Liberty) crash into midtown Manhattan. And it's perfectly fine to smile when socially awkward Sam finally plants a smooch on his dream girl.
Because when you're home "sick" from school, or home alone on a Friday night, that's exactly the kind of mindless entertainment you need for a few hours.
