The Day After Tomorrow

Initial Thoughts

            The overall idea of this movie is simply terrifying. Unlike other apocalypse movies where the world is overrun by a horde of zombies, monsters or aliens, this movie throws the world into a realistic apocalypse situation. This realistic atmosphere interests the audience more, as does the realistic political writing.  

 

            And in this apocalyptic world, there are heartfelt death scenes, fantastic character development, and great atmosphere. As you can tell, I am very excited to get into the meat of the movie, so without further ado, here's The Day After Tomorrow.

 

Story/Plot: 25 out of 25

            Although on the surface it may seem like your everyday apocalypse storyline, what makes it stand out is how it goes about telling the story and which plot devices it uses to help interlock the different substories into one functioning storyline. That’s what makes it different.

 

            One aspect of the story that could have been bad, was actually good, and that was how many main characters it had. I felt that there were a lot of characters in this movie; however because of the pacing of the story, the number of characters was not a burden to the story at all.

 

Characters: 22 out of 25

            All of the characters were very realistic, and made decisions that make sense given the apocalyptic circumstances. A character making dumb and non-realistic decisions is a common error made by other movies of the same genre. Most of the characters were developed well, which is surprising considering the number of characters.

 

            Laura and Sam's relationship seemed downplayed, and to me it should have been one of the more important aspects, as in an apocalyptic situation, people will tend to turn to either religion or love to cope. In World War Z, for example, Brad

Pitt is fighting for his family almost all the way through.

 

            Overall, great actors, each one adding their own little spin on the characters. making them more relatable and more likable.

 

Special Effects: 11 out of 25

            I am not going to lie. To me, the SG was dated, enough to make the audience notice. In addition, while the apocalypse scenes still filled the viewers with awe, it wasn't really the SGI that created that feeling; it was the scale and magnitude of the catastrophe.

 

            While these special effects might have been slightly better than the SGI in Battleship: the movie, they are still far below par.

 

Writing: 25 out of 25

            The overall writing is very clever, adding tons of political disputes, but in the end, everyone ends up failing. This shows that in a real apocalyptic situation, politics won’t do much to fix the situation; all of this adds to the already heavy atmosphere in the movie.

 

            The writing of the complex storyline is a welcome change from the average everyday apocalypse film. In other films of the same genre, the main characters who are in danger usually have a place they are trying to get to, a place where they will be truly safe, but in this movie, they have no such place; they need to survive until help arrives.

 

            Sure there are a few clichés here and there, but with all of the refreshing changes, they are hardly noticeable.               

 

 

Final Verdict

83/100

Above Average

 

With an interesting and complex storyline, interesting characters, and clever writing, this movie definitely is above average. The only thing that keeps it from being any better is its dated SGI. In other movies that wouldn't have hurt so much, but seeing how it’s an apocalypse movie, special effects are pretty important.

 

If you haven't watched it yet, give it a go, it is definitely worth your while.