Stuff by Steve

I’m a sucker for a good disaster movie. Actually, I’m a sucker for a mediocre disaster movie (I’m also a sucker for a mediocre monster movie, but you’ll have to wait until AvP comes out for more on that). This movie fits squarely in between those two categories, proving that it is possible to make a disaster movie without it being a disaster itself. Ha ha.

A hundred-foot wall of water advances without remorse on New York City

I suppose there are two things I like about disaster movies. The first is the widespread destruction that usually accompanies such films. All philosophical waxing aside, I admit that I think it’s just really cool to see the countryside getting blown up, knocked down, disintegrated, and otherwise rendered unrecognizable.

The second thing I like is that, when I watch a disaster movie, I find myself in the same position as the characters usually do - that of taking stock of my life’s priorities. I find that I get drawn into the introspection done and life lessons learned by the characters during the unfolding of the film, and this usually causes me to re-evaluate or, more likely, re-affirm, my own priorities.

Priorities that, in this case, include watching this film. True, most disaster movies have a plot as thin as wax paper wrapped around some really stinky cheese, and I can’t say that the plot here holds up to much. But the real charm here is the plausibility of it all. Now, I’m not supporting the science or advocating the “realism” behind the film. It’s just that, for some reason, the movie seems to have a certain sense of believability (Hmmm, I’m actually saying this) about it that seems to draw all of the other elements into place.

The other elements, of course, being the obviously important plot and character interactions. Overall, the acting was good. I like Dennis Quaid as an actor, although he seems a bit funny cast as a scientist (watch him in “The Rookie” for a role that seems to fit him like a glove, pardon the pun). His supporting scientific crew aren’t bad, either. Kyle Gyllenhaal, whom I thought I’d never seen before (that’s the problem with casting teenagers - you can only cast the same one once or twice before he or she is no longer a teenager - turns out he was Billy Crystal’s son in “City Slickers” (1991)) plays his son quite well - I really enjoyed his smart-yet-cautious demeanor and the way he seems to come into his own later in the film. And Ian Holm was great, as always.

The superstorm as viewed from space.  It’s a thing of beauty to see it on the big screen in all of its awful glory - unlike the wasted almost-romantic sub-plot

The rest of the cast is alright as well - no one drags the film down in any way. If anything did, it would be the plot. Skip the rest of this paragraph if you haven’t seen the film. The romantic sub-plot between two of the scientists seems contrived only to inspire concern for the guy before he finds himself in a jam, and in the end is ultimately wasted. Also, it seems ridiculous that Quaid’s character would make it halfway across the continent in a matter of days, let alone do it while walking in sub-zero temperatures (I’ve lived up north - scientifically engineered underwear or not, being in the cold is no day at the beach). I also noticed that he approaches New York City from underneath the Statue of Liberty, which happens to be in the Atlantic. I wonder why he took the long way around. It was probably so the director could get the beauty shot of the city’s skyline with the frozen monument in the foreground. Lastly, certain disasters (the tornados in L.A. come immediately to mind) seem corny just because of their immense un-believability, as if the producer said to himself, “Now this part should be so amazing that everyone’s jaw should be on the floor by the end.” The world gets dipped in 300 feet of ice by the end of the movie - seems amazing enough to me.

And it really looks amazing. The scenery-scapes are simply breathtaking. Honestly, the shots of earth from space make you think you’re looking at footage from NASA - nay, like you’re looking out the window of the International Space Station itself. Most of the special effects are this way, although I still have yet to see a movie-generated tornado that reminds me of the real thing. And while I’m griping, why the computer-generated wolves? I mean, the movie tried really hard to be plausible, but the unrealistic CGI animals did nothing to help that. I’ve nothing against the scene itself, but the execution left me cold (man, I’m on fire today). Still, overall, the movie was visually stunning. I was blown away right from the beginning when the Larsen B Ice Shelf began to break off with a crack that extended to the horizon. Seeing the frozen wastes that would eventually make up most of the northern hemisphere helped to re-enforce the global scope and entrench the finality of this movie’s disaster.

On a philosophical note, it was interesting what the writer/director Emmerich chose to emphasize as what people’s priorities should be. On the one hand, he puts much weight on the climatologist’s relationship with his son. But what of his relationship with his estranged (ex-) wife? Does that not bear re-evaluating? In an ironic note, at least for me as a Christian, one of the staff at the New York Library decides that he is going to rescue a copy of the Guttenberg Bible. His reason: he believes that the written word is mankind’s greatest achievement. I won’t get too preachy here, but had he turned to the latter part of any of the books of Matthew, Mark, or Luke, he would have read of Jesus speaking of the end of the world, saying what the King James Version translates this way:

“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”

In the end, if you want to see a disaster movie that actually moves you, rent “Deep Impact”, which, while short on disaster (albeit the end was still pretty amazing), had palpable tension and emotionally evocative characters. But if you’re like me and you sometimes just want to sit and think about what it would be like if the world ended as you know it, this one’s worth the cold, hard cash.

Sometimes, I just out-do myself.

-Steven Klassen (2004-07-04)