Synopsis:
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW: Director Roland Emmerich (INDEPENDENCE DAY, GODZILLA) trades in evil aliens and radioactive lizards for some seriously bad weather. When a radical change in the temperature...
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW: Director Roland Emmerich (INDEPENDENCE DAY, GODZILLA) trades in evil aliens and radioactive lizards for some seriously bad weather. When a radical change in the temperature of the world's oceans causes deadly storms and sets a new Ice Age in motion, climatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) must race from Washington, D.C., to save his son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), in the subzero climate of New York City. Elsewhere, tornadoes and hail menace the globe, leading to international disasters on an extraordinary level.
Emmerich, who has proven on numerous occasions to be a master of big-budget cinematic destruction, aims to outdo himself with THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. Here, entire cities are ripped apart, flooded, and/or frozen, adding up to one of the biggest disaster movies ever filmed. Although astonishingly rendered special effects rule the movie, adept actors such as Quaid and Gyllenhaal (along with Sela Ward, Ian Holm, Emmy Rossum, and others) turn in solid performances that help to balance out the meteorological mayhem. Surprisingly, Emmerich also uses the film as a vehicle for clever moments of social and political commentary, making THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW admirably smarter and considerably more entertaining than typical Hollywood blockbusters.
FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Originally a 1965 Jimmy Stewart vehicle, this FLIGHT gets a rough-and-ready updating for the new century, with the stalwart Dennis Quaid now inhabiting the title role. He's a pilot on a routine trip out to investigate some remote oil rigs in the Gobi Desert, when things go wrong and he makes a crash landing in the middle of nowhere. For him and the men with him, a slow, tortured, thirsty death seems certain, unless the plucky mechanic in the crew (Giovanni Ribisi) can design a whole new plane from the wreckage. As with the original, this is a manly adventure about rugged survival and mechanical ingenuity--but this time there's also a woman on board--Kelly (Miranda Otto), who generates a few romantic sparks. Some of the other survivors are played by Tyrese Gibson, Sticky Fingaz, Bob Brown, and Kirk Jones. The men and one woman have to tangle with sandstorms and murderous desert raiders in addition to the frequent squabbling amongst themselves. Director John Moore gets a lot of mileage out of the desert backdrop, and Ribisi is solid as the mechanic with a troubled past. The film was produced by William Aldrich, whose dad Robert directed the Stewart original. Edward Burns (THE BROTHERS McMULLEN) co-wrote the new screenplay.
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