The Day After Tomorrow

At the theater the other day, I saw a trailer for a movie called The Day After Tomorrow. The trailer doesn’t give any of the plot away, but the movie is about the aftermath of global warming, basically an audiovisual depiction of the direst of effects of massive global climate changes. A flooded-and-then-frozen NYC seems to be one of the featured locations, as does a tornado-ravaged LA. I have a soft spot for this genre of movie (I don’t know that the genre has a name…it’s part sci-fi, part disaster flick, but not really entirely either). Take all of humanity, add a global catastrophe/event of some sort (the event doesn’t have to be negative, just global), and see what happens.

Unfortunately for me, movies of this type are rarely done well. Off the top of my head, the only good representative film I can think of is Dr. Strangelove (ooh, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The not-so-good ones are easy to name: Independence Day, Godzilla, Armageddon, Deep Impact, The Core, etc. etc. It looks like The Day After Tomorrow will also be of the not-so-good variety. Schlockmeister Roland Emmerich is writing and directing, the guy behind such films as The Patriot and Stargate as well as the aforementioned Godzilla and Independence Day. I’ve (unfortunately) seen all of those movies and I haven’t groaned that much since….well, you know.