The Day After Tomorrow -- An Inconvenient Movie

Facts: Events of 2004 included the baffling re-election of a human-shaped chimpanzee, Facebook being unleashed upon us all, and Massachusetts legalizing gay marriage, which reignited a simmering controversy. Another relevant controversy was brewing pertaining to The Day After Tomorrow: "Is it junk science or is it plausible, is it watchable or is it putrid, and do wolves really have opposable thumbs?" Starring Dennis "What Was This Guy in Again?" Quaid, Jake "I Wish I Could Quit You" Gyllenhaal, Sela "Fugitive Lover" Ward, and some up-and-coming no-names who would rather forget they were in this movie. (We, however, will not let them forget.)

Plot summary: Once again, science drives a wedge in the middle of an ideal American family. Absent father Jack (Quaid), a ruggedly-handsome climatologist, is screwing around on the Antarctic ice shelf when suddenly the ice breaks up, in a portent of things to come. Son Sam (Gyllenhaal) is busy wallowing in teenage cliches of awkwardness and insecurity on a school trip to New York City. His career-minded mom Lucy (Ward) is occupied with fawning over the world's most contrived subplot (more on this later). After returning home from his stint in Antarctica, Jack begins to receive disturbing messages from a rouge scientific outpost in Scotland, which, surprisingly, confirms his doomsday scenario for the end of the earth (think ice, mmkay?). After a series of outrageous weather phenomena (hail stones the size of personal watermelons attack Hong Kong and several cyclones ransack perennial disaster hotspot Los Angeles), our consistently disbelieving public servants begin to take Jack seriously. But perhaps it's too late. Insert computer model mumbo-jumbo, climatological buzzwords, etc. Stir vigorously, and you'll end up with one climate-altering meso-cyclone. As the world's slowly being turned into a popsicle with human corpse sprinkles, Jack realizes his son is trapped in New York, as it turns out being menaced by wolves and engaging in a little good old-fashioned book burning. Father of the Year strikes out across the snow, with several of his canon fodder minions in tow, determined to find his boy and win back the heart of his ex-wife to boot. We both sort of fell asleep at this point, but by the time we awoke, Jack had managed to slog his way to New York, Lucy was trapped in a freezing hospital with the cancer-ridden subplot #1, and Sam was snuggling his way to every boy's dream come true. A bunch of people die. However, eventually, the characters we're supposed to care about all make it out alive and settle in Mexico, which for some reason has allowed the U.S. Government to come and set up shop outside Tijuana (Coronas for everyone!).

Key moments of interest:
Several scientists minding their own business are nearly swallowed whole by the merciless ice.
If only this awkward kid was as smooth with women as he is with world geography. (Since he looks like Jake Gyllenhaal, we think he'll be okay.)
Dr. Sela checks in on Cancer Patient #1, who is bedridden and can't be moved. We're sure this won't be an issue later...
When the whiskey runs out, some Scottish scientists sober up enough to realize something's terribly wrong on the North Atlantic.
Dr. Mom: "He's your son, too, dammit! Why can't you make more of an effort?"
Professor Father: "Abuh?"
Whee! Off to New York for the National Nerd Association Meeting! (Or something.) Thankfully hottie classmate (who just happens to be brilliant) came along, too.
Aw, Hell, it's hailing in Hong Kong! Chinese cars were not designed for this!
Whoosh! I don't think we're in So Cal anymore.
Scientist Guy gets called in to brief the president. (Where have we seen this before?)
After rebuffing his critics, he lays it out: Another Ice Age is imminent (in, like, a week and a half).
Enormous meso-cyclones (think huge hurricanes) reach into the upper atmosphere and flash freeze everything they encounter, including some helicopters.
The Scots find their secret stash of whiskey, and then they don't mind freezing to death so much. Sniff.
Storm surge floods NYC, and Sam takes refuge in an enormous library.
Jack strikes out across the barren wasteland to find his son. He loses a few friends along the way.
A bunch of red shirts try to leave the library, and predictably freeze to death. If only they had listened to the teenage son of a climatologist!
Dr. Morality refuses to leave the hospital until an ambulance can ferret away Cancer Boy at the last possible second.
"I'm diabetic! I need insulin! Where could we find some in this frozen wasteland?"
Sam: "Well, maybe we can find some on that presumably deserted ship."
I doubt they'll run into pirates or zombies or...wolves.
OMG! Wolves on the ship! (Not to be confused with snakes on a plane.)
They're easily outwitted, and Diabetic Girl lives to whine another day.
Improbably, Jack locates Sam at the library and they scurry to the top of the building to be rescued by helicopters.
Welcome to the United States of Mexico! Your cabana is down the road on the left, and don't drink the water.

Snarky movie discussion:
(Note: Per Crabs's request, this week's discussion will focus on the movie's impact on the Green Movement.)
ANG: How much of an impact do you think this movie had on Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth? Do you think it's safe to say that the latter would not have existed without the former?
CRABS: I was speaking with Al just the other week at the Masonic Association of Tennessee's annual conference in Mechanicsville, and this very topic came up.
ANG: How fortuitous.
CRABS: Well, the Lord works in mysterious ways. As I was saying, Al was telling me of a particularly lonely night when he was coming down and the girls were out of town. In his addled stupor, he hitch-hiked to the nearest Blockbuster and rented this movie, thinking it was a documentary on sex worker industry of Thailand. He went on to regale me with the epiphany he had as the credits of this movie were rolling and said, "This movie altered my perception of the world and gave me a path to pursue and a reason to live."
ANG: Strong words for sure. Do you feel as if this movie portrays wolves in an unflattering light?
CRABS: Well, it seems clear, or should seem clear to anyone with half a brain, that the wolves in this film are obvious metaphors for greedy industrialists, and the no-holds-barred pursuit of monetary gain, which has been the bane of the environmental movement since those innocent tree-hugging days of the 60s.
ANG: So this movie isn't really saying anything about wolves at all? The wolves are just a metaphor?
CRABS: Well, clearly, wolves are in fact inherently evil and should be shot from helicopters. Thank you, Sarah Palin.
ANG: In the movie, global warming and global cooling occur simultaneously. Is this just lazy science, or is there something to be gleaned from this?
CRABS: Much like the yin and yang of ancient eastern philosophy, global warming and global cooling are clearly manifestations of the same social synergistic paradigm, namely, in layman's terms, you can't have your cake and eat it, too. In the context of the movie, both warming and cooling are portrayed as evil and yet inter-related. I see in this an obvious reflection of the neo-Freudian assertion that the human psyche, and by extension the universe at large, is but an aggregate of the sum of all experiences and events throughout history and time. And thusly, cannot be extricated from one another, but must inexorably beat on against the waves of time.

For next time: some nincompoops in Hollywood decided to make a movie based on the RPG Dungeons & Dragons. It's as awful as it sounds, and Ang and Crabs are going to tell you about it.

Rating: three sticks in the eye (for laymen). However, for a scientifically-minded audience, nine to fifteen (and a wolf fang).