'The Day Before Yesterday' & 'King Kong'

[Anthony G Williams]

I'm slowly catching up with recent SFF films, and saw a couple of them last week. One is The Day After Tomorrow, about the sudden onset of a new ice age. An average-quality disaster movie requiring a high-than-average suspension of disbelief. This is due to the plot making no sense climatologically, especially because of the improbability (to put it mildly) of the suddenness and severity of the cooling effect (ambient temperature falling to minus 150 degrees in a few seconds?). Climate change is obviously a difficult subject for Hollywood. Unlike major earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and volcanic eruptions, which are catastrophic short-term events, climate change takes – at least – years, and usually decades, to produce dramatic results. Rather too long a timeframe for an exciting film, so they decided to exaggerate everything by a few orders of magnitude. And, as is commonplace with Hollywood products, there is a strong focus on the family in the centre of the storm (although not to the same ridiculous extent as the remake of The War of the Worlds which I've written about previously). As is usual with modern disaster movies, the real star of the show is the CGI of the disaster itself, with a massive storm surge crashing into New York.

The other film I've seen is King Kong – the recent version. A good film, with well-played characters and a most impressive, and expressive, Kong. This one is about relationships too, but then it's meant to be. Naomi Watts provides a credibly appealing focus for the beast's affections, and their story is handled well. The only complaint I have is that the film is too long, partly because the director seems to have overindulged himself in playing for ages with an array of CGI monsters on Kong's island chasing and devouring sundry members of the cast. I kept wanting to cut these peripheral scenes short as I watched them.

(An extract from my SFF blog)

 

[sloweye]

I realy liked 'the day after tomorrow, it was a good way to wake the masses up to the possible effects of climate change. Most 'average Joes' would switch chanels when the factual programs come on the T.V. but in a film they take notice. i know a few people who got the 'Could this realy happen' bee in their bonnet after seeing it.

i cant coment on king kong, only that i think it should have been left alone.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

I agree that awakening people to the potential downsides of climate change is a Good Thing, but the problem is that scaring them with unrealistic scenarios is likely to prove counter-productive. It's easy to poke big holes n the climate science shown in the film, and I doubt that serious climatologists would want to be associated with it.

 

[sloweye]

No, i wouldnt think they would.
But if it makes the average person sit up and take a look it cant be all bad. Better subject matter tha say 'Volcano' as its more current. if they hadnt made it so OTT they wouldnt have got peoples atension the way the did. I know that i wouldnt pay to see a docufilm on weather, but then your average person probebly wuoldnt watch them on the T.V.
i felt the film was a pretty good half way house.

 

[Ursa major]

Of the two films mentioned, I've only seen Jackson's King Kong.

The effects were impressive (though not that believable: the dinosaur stampede was fun but nonsense), and the build up okay. But somewhere along the line, the sense drained out of the whole film. (Frankly, it was more than silly.) I found it hard to watch it to the end.

 

[Connavar]

The Day After Tomorrow made me myself promise not to watch hollywood sf blockbuster on the cinema itself again. Next movie like that i thought "after day after tommorow no no no.... "

I agree on everything you said, it was so stupid that i felt insulted afterwards. The family in the centre thing is really silly just like The War of the Worlds.

For once it would be nice to see movie like that done realisticly and over a long time period.

 

[sloweye]

The War of the Worlds. yuk!!!
Give me the old music version any day. (i cant stand tom cruse)

 

[steve12553]

Of the three films talked about here, the best of the bunch, as silly as it was, has to be The Day After Tomorrow. The other two were remeakes of far superior films. Films that were spectacular in there era whereas the remakes had special effects that do not stand out today and stories that were inferior to what based on (both books and movies). In Kong the girl could not possibly survive being flung around and caught as she was, either mentally or physically and what did she suddenly fall in love with the ape? (Faye Wray came out of her shock eventually and became slightly sympathetic.) War of the Worlds disappointed me because the special effects exist to make the movie exactly as Welles wrote it. (Tripod walking machines in 1890's London. Grinding up people for food) It would have been wonderfull. But Spielberg and Cruise did a poor remake of the fifties classic. The Day After Tomorrow was very silly but much more original than the other two.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

I probably liked The Day After Tomorrow the best out of those ones as well, just for the cool factor. No pun intended, I swear!

 

[Ursa major]

I saw the Cruise version of The War of the Worlds on the TV a couple or so months back. I found the film to be better than the reports I'd heard - not that this would be difficult.

While far from a classic, it didn't stray that much further from the book (which I'd read earlier this year) than many Hollywood efforts with better reputations. (In fact, within the framework of having to have family members with the protagonist most or all of the time, it still managed to fit in quite a few of the book's principal scenes, accepting that some of these had been assigned to the chief protagonist's brother by Wells in the book.)

 

[MontyCircus]

War of the Worlds (new one) should have been a classic. It ends up having its moments and being "okay". I've always loved the original.

The Day After Tomorrow was horrible. Really awful. I think I finished watching it but by then I was laughing at it.

King Kong (new one) was fantastic. Perfect. I have no idea why it wasn't a huge blockbuster. People say it was too long...you weren't glued to your seats with your jaw on the floor watching Kong battle those T-Rexes in the vines??? What do you want from an adventure movie? The action was absolutely incredible.

And hell, I cry like a baby at the end, and I mean like "my grandmother just died" type of crying (in the theatre my girlfriend at the time was laughing at me as I soaked her shoulder)...just like I do with the 1933 classic every time that silhouette comes tumbling down. Every time. Can't help it. Not sure why exactly. I guess it's because Kong is such a pure thing. Knowing he can't have love, but is willing to die to hold onto it as long as he can. That's more heart-breaking to me than any realistic, complex melodrama you can name.

Heroic deaths in war movies get me too. Maybe it's because I see so little of it in myself, that I can fully appreciate their courage and valour.

Why do they die...why not me?

 

[clovis-man]

I saw the Cruise version of The War of the Worlds on the TV a couple or so months back. I found the film to be better than the reports I'd heard - not that this would be difficult.

While far from a classic, it didn't stray that much further from the book (which I'd read earlier this year) than many Hollywood efforts with better reputations.

Although Spielberg did include a thing or two from Wells' book (e.g., the creeping red plants) I was surprised initially to realize that this film was essentially an homage to the George Pal classic. Or if you prefer: a remake. As such, I thought it was more than okay, even if you take into account the obligatory "Tom Cruise moments".

 

[ravenus]

The other film I've seen is King Kong...The only complaint I have is that the film is too long, partly because the director seems to have overindulged himself in playing for ages with an array of CGI monsters on Kong's island chasing and devouring sundry members of the cast. I kept wanting to cut these peripheral scenes short as I watched them.
(An extract from my SFF blog)

Kong fighting monsters is PERIPHERAL?! Without those, and I would say in spite of those, you might as well have called the film The Chorus Girl, The Incredibly Nondescript Whatsisname and, Oh, There's A Biggish Ape Too*


*And he's not called Jack Black

 

[tangaloomababe]

Its been some time since I have seen Day after Tomorrow and it must have not left to much of an impact because my memory of it is vague. I think it was one of those over blow Hollywood disaster movies but nowhere near as bad as "War of the Worlds (I can't even begin to list what annoyed me about that!!!)

Or can I?

Dakota Fanning's screaming
Tom Cruise look at me!
Despite everything the happy ending with ALL family members intact
nah this could take to long.......................

I liked King Kong but agree with Anthony on all points that it was overly long and Jackson's indulgence with dinasours and other creatures almost ruined it for me. If the movie had been even 30-40 min shorter and he had cut out most of the critters I would have rated it a lot higher.

 

[MontyCircus]

Despite everything the happy ending with ALL family members intact

Yeah! I went into a rage of convulsions when that friggin' son pops up alive in the last damn frame FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spielberg is obsessed with no children being harmed in his movies.

Why not end it with it all being a silly dream...and no one was actually harmed?

I can't wait for the director's cut where the people incinerated by ray-guns are instead just momentarily stunned by them and then gently fall onto a bed of soft pillows.

Grow some BALLS man!!! ****.

 

[Ursa major]

Yeah! I went into a rage of convulsions when that friggin' son pops up alive in the last damn frame FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And it doesn't help that the whiny cretin was asking to be fried for most of the film.


(Now you've let the cat out of the bag - okay, it's Spielberg: the son wasn't going to die, so it's hardly a spoiler - I feel obliged to agree with you on this, Monty.)

 

[ktabic]

The more I hear about the Spielberg War of the Worlds, the more I'm happy to have never watched it and no intention to ever watch it. Gimme the old version any day, or the novel.

 

[tangaloomababe]

Originally posted by Monty

Spielberg is obsessed with no children being harmed in his movies.

Yes but couldn't he have done some damage to Mr Cruise instead?

 

[MontyCircus]

And it doesn't help that the whiny cretin was asking to be fried for most of the film.


(Now you've let the cat out of the bag - okay, it's Spielberg: the son wasn't going to die, so it's hardly a spoiler - I feel obliged to agree with you on this, Monty.)

It's not a spoiler, because it's not a twist and the knowledge of this happening does not ruin your appreciation for the film BECAUSE...it is such an incredibly BAD IDEA.

Did they not show the film to test audiences? Didn't anyone say they wish the kid had died? Certainly the majority.

Honestly if you take that bit out it would probably add a half-star onto the film. It just drives me crazy. And there's really no other parallel I can think of to any other movie where the ending is just SO wrong. Oh wait I can...when the girl that was attacked by little dinos in The Lost World, obviously nibbled to death. And then later we hear that she was alright and "just had a few scratches."

Oh and who directed that one? C'mon Steve...you're killin' me here.

 

[Ursa major]

It's not a spoiler because it's not a twist and the knowledge of this happening does not ruin your appreciation for the film ...

Agreed.

...BECAUSE...it is such an incredibly BAD IDEA.

Also agreed.