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DVD review of THE disaster flick of 2004. Of course, as per my luck, a special edition one came out about a year later.
The Main Characters
--Jake Hall (Dennis Quaid) is a scientist who warns the Vice President of the United States of America of the certain doom that will befall the Earth if they treat it the way they do. Of course, that impending doom happens in a matter of weeks, and when his son is trapped in New York City and an ice age about to hit, he has to go up there to save him.
--Sam Hall (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a genius like his father who is in New York City for a school competition. He stays in New York in the City Library with his friends waiting for his father to fulfill his promise and come get him, and save him before New York freezes over.
--Laura Chapman (Emmy Rossum) is Sam’s love interest in the film. She is trapped in New York City with him but she may not make it due to an injury that got infected. Can she be saved?
The Setting
Disasters hit the whole world, but it mainly focuses on the New York disaster where Sam is located.
The Plot
Sam Hill starts the movie in Antarctica and is rather stunned when a chunk of ice the size of Rhode Island breaks off the continent. He goes to a geographical/ecological summit in India about the state of the world and he warns everyone that the Earth is on the way to another Ice Age if they’re not careful. Everyone basically laughs him off, especially the VP of the USA. He comes home defeated and has enough time to drive his son, Jake, to the airport so he can fly to New York City for a school competition. Of course, once he’s there, all hell breaks loose.
A super tornado hits hurricane, massive amounts of rainfall pound down on New York and it starts to flood. Terrible weather is happening all around and Sam and his cronies come to a stunning conclusion. Time is running out and they have only a matter of weeks before another Ice Age hits and everything north of the 49th parallel will be frozen solid. He asks the VP to evacuate those areas and again he is laughed off. Nobody is laughing when things start freezing over and copious amounts of people just get frozen in place. Sam and his friends are stuck in the New York City Public Library, burning books to stay alive, and Laura nursing an infected leg that she never told anyone about. So Sam must brave the weather (and some well-placed wolves) and find some penicillin (and luckily there’s a Russian boat nearby) as his father and his two pals scurry up North to save Sam.
Movie Review
The plot is barely there since, hey, this is an FX movie about the destruction of the world. The acting is decent at best but, hey, this IS an FX movie about the destruction of the world. As movies go, this one won’t be remembered for it’s exceptional acting or outstanding writing, this is a movie that will be remembered as a movie that destroyed the Hollywood sign with a tornado. This movie came out to some decent reviews but made a bundle in the box office for one simple reason. It was one of THE most enjoyable films of 2004. Spider-Man 2 had better action scenes and acting, Shrek 2 was funnier with better writing, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t stand up against those two in terms of sheer fun. You watch this movie and expect to be entertained, and you are. The special effects are nothing short of amazing, and just watching the drama build as more and more catastrophes happen leaves you pumped for the climax, and then the calm after the storm. I don’t want to give anything away in the movie, though most of it is painfully predictable, but anyone who wants to watch a movie and be entertained for two hours straight need look no further than here. ***.
DVD Features
A) Extras
1) Feature Commentary 1
This is done by Director/Co-Writer Roland Emmerich and Producer Mark Gordon. Mark jokes that Roland is the co-writer/director and co-producer while he is only the producer. They talk about the long opening sequence and how much work went into this film, and how the opening shot was expensive (since it was paid for twice, like a lot of things in the movie). They recorded this commentary after the film had been open for 5 weeks, so they were already rolling in the cash then. Mark Gordon on Jack Hall’s ice pickaxe move, “There’s no fucking way (turns to Roland), I’m not insulting you, am I?” Classic. Just a brief note from me, Roland sounds very similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger. The VP was cast since he looked like Dick Cheney, and Mark notes they got a lot of shit from the press on it, but applauded from others. They mention the scene that takes place in India in the movie is actually found in Canada of all places. Mark mentions that the producers mention that the Black English man kissing the white woman should be taken out since they didn’t want the backlash against that. Yeah, people wanted that taken in out the year 2004 because a black guy was kissing a white woman, how fucked is that? When Jake improvises and says, “I bet he has a really big car,” they thought he said cock instead of car. They joke about Kirsten Dunst being in the movie and that it was the best deal they ever had, since she shot for free. They say they should’ve shined more light on her to make 25k more in the box office. They say Emmy was cast when she was 15! Further with Emmy, they say she was confused and anxious about the scene where she puts the cloak over Jake and hugs him to warm him up. Mark mentions opening around Shrek 2 and Harry Potter and then says this was movie had the smallest budget of all the summer 2004 “blockbusters.” They talk about a bunch of other things I can’t even begin to cover, and this is easily the best extra feature of the movie.
2) Feature Commentary 2
Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Ueli Steiger, David Brenner and Barry Chusid do this commentary. They start off right away with the Fox logo changing and then the great Iceberg shot which is the longest digital sequence of the film and one of the first things they worked on. The scene where Dennis’ character puts the ice pick in was shot but never to anyone’s satisfaction so it was kept off camera. They mention the global climate seminar scene was a lot longer but dragged and was cut. The Japanese Hail scene has the character Taka die, and he was actually talking to who was supposed to be a main character (Gary). They talk about a scene with Jake’s character smoking pot and studying that was supposed to be good but was cut. They say blowing up the Hollywood sign got huge cheers in NY (I saw it in NY and I don’t remember anyone cheering though, LIARS!). The scene with the flirtation between Jake’s assistant and that other girl was requested by Roland to be written just so the two can have a flirtatious moment and make Dash likeable. In the scene with the British choppers, they wanted to have frozen people in the car but they looked to fake and it was cut, and they talk about the music (or lack thereof) in that scene. They originally had the pilot take a few steps but people in screenings questioned that if it was so cold, how could he walk out? The delivery truck in NYC that has DBT on it stands for Dark Brown Truck. Yep. They talk about the flooding sequence of NY being scary to some people, and I can see that because it could happen, and even now as I write this after the tsunami disaster, it makes it even scarier to watch and think about how destructive that would be. They joke about Sam being underwater that long and it would really kill him, and then they say the water wasn’t actually cold. The breaths in all the shots were added later and they almost didn’t have enough money for it, but they got them added. The writer said he put in the Nietchze reference on a dare. The writer also says he asked the NYC Library if there was a fireplace in there and they said there was, so he made that the central location. They talk about the walking on top of the mall, and the viewer seeing the danger before the characters a la Hitchcock and the scene being reminiscent of Jurassic Park 2. The original draft of the movie had the mother dying and the fireman saving the woman was a nod to September 11th, and it felt right having the fireman save her, and this being the first disaster film since 9/11. They showed the storm clearing because people wanted to see it clear instead of just Jack and Jason mention it, so it was added pretty late. They also mention the wolves would’ve chases Sam and others into the library but they cut that out, too. The last few scenes were among the most edited and re-edited and the speech was done many, many times. They wanted to end the movie on a positive note and also sort of warn people what could happen to the earth. Really good commentary where I wasn’t expecting too much and got a whole lot.
3) Deleted Scenes
There are two deleted scenes:
---A) Scene 25: Gary’s Shady Deal/Taka Dies (2:45)
This was alluded to in the second commentary. Gary is a shady stockbroker and deals with Taka, the guy who dies in China on the cell phone. Gary is on the phone with him and meets the homeless man who we see later on. It really had no place in the movie as it’s developing characters that really had no use later on. Plus, just showing the disaster with score was a lot better and moved the film along much better.
---B) Scene 209-210B: First Version of Jack and Jason after the Big Freeze. (3:45)
This is the first version of Jack talking to Jason after the big freeze. It’s weird I sort of remember this scene from the theaters, so maybe it was in the version my theater got. It’s funny though when Jack talks about the vacation he and Sam went on that was a disaster and saying how horrible it was. That was the same vacation Sam tells Laura about. They hear the storm end and go to NYC. It doesn’t show the frozen bad cop like the movie does in this version.
4) Audio Anatomy: Interactive Demo with 8 Tracks of Audio (1:49)
They show the helicopter scene with 8 different audio tracks. These things are fun to cycle through once to hear all the different elements. The 8 different tracks you get (especially cool is the ice freezing one on Track 5) are: The Final Mix, Dialogue, Helicopter Sound Design, Engines, Ice and Wind, Sound Effects, Foley and Music.
5) Inside Look (2:00)
This is an inside look at a Fox movie coming out. It is with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie called Mr. And Mrs. Smith where both are secret agents but the other doesn’t know about their jobs. It was also the movie that led to Jen and Brad splitting, how sad.
---DVD-ROM---
6) Exclusive Behind the Scenes Footage (1:07:54)
This brings you to a page of exclusive behind the scenes clips. They show them filming the movie with the main players behind the scenes talking about said scene. Here is what they have:
---A) Eye of the Storm: Filming Day After Tomorrow (7:11)
This is really like the making of featurette. It has the usual director and cast thoughts on the film.
---B) Scene 18: Kona Beach (4:24)
This is a scene that would actually be deleted from the movie. It basically looks like a hurricane blowing through the area. They also show the filming of the India scene…in Canada.
---C) Scene 29: Tokyo, Japan (7:02)
This talks about the scene in Japan (with the problem of how to make the hail) as well as Dennis Quaid and Jack Gyllenhaal and their scene together in Washington DC.
---D) Scene 61: Pinehurst Academy (6:46)
This talks about Ueli Steiger and his work in the academy, and then the tornado shots in LA.
---E) Scene 93: Nat’l Oceanic and Atmosphere Academy (7:28)
This is the director/producer talking about the scene with Dennis at the Academy, and then the slow build with them in NY and moving from place to place.
---F) Scene C108: Ext. Manhattan Public Library (8:19)
This is about the big scene in the library. They show them actually build the massive set. In fact, that’s really what they talk about, the massive set.
---G) Scene 139: The White House (6:29)
This is the scene at the White House and all the shooting that they had to do and re-writing. They originally had the president reading the speech at the end, but it was decided to kill the president and have the VP read the speech. They then talk about the scene in the library where the security guard convinces almost everyone to leave while Jake tries to tell them to stay.
---H) Scene B150: The Mexican-American Border (6:23)
This scene took about 6 months of planning for one day of shooting. Basically they had to get the rights from both the American and Mexican customs for this, and they uses about 2000 extras. Some were American, some Mexican, since each could only go about halfway through the river. They then go to the scene where everyone left the library and are walking while the producers and all discuss making the snow and working indoors.
---I) Behind The Set (7:28)
This is more talk about the snow and the actor’s thoughts on it. It then moves to the big cargo ship floating down 5th Avenue. They said the stage was VERY small and they had a huge set there. They also talk about the scene where they have to climb up the hill and they couldn’t do it, and then the stuntmen couldn’t do it.
---J) Scene 217: Library Corridor (7:24)
This is really them talking about one of the final scenes of the movie. They mention the ice in the library, the library trustee room and it looking different due to it not being frozen.
7) Global Watch
This has a bunch of cities listed with their most recent disaster. It has it separated by floods, tornadoes, storms, hail and anomalies. Pretty interesting.
8) City Freeze
This takes a look at 8 cities and what they would be like if the climate shifted. The 8 cities are, LA, NYC, London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Tokyo, and Sydney; Basically it shows it gaining lots of snow, or getting plowed over with water.
9) Visit Official Website
A link to the official website.
B) Audio/Video
The audio is in either DTS 5.1 or Dolby Surround 5.1. There’s also French and Spanish tracks (in plain old surround) and Spanish and English subtitles. The video is in anamorphic widescreen with a 2.35:1 ratio scope.
C) Liner Notes
One page of liner notes. The front has the cover and the back has the chapter listings. There’s also a save $10 on these DVD’s type pamphlets so whoopee. I should also mention the awesome slipcase it’s housed in, with a foil type cover that rules.
D) Easter Eggs
None that I could find.
Overall Review
The movie starts out with scenes from other Fox movies and some trailers (Man on Fire, I, Robot, and Alien vs. Predator). The movie is awesome, but it seems to be really light on the extras. The movie made a ton of money so I don’t know why they didn’t make it a double disc set. Maybe they’ll double dip later and pump out a 2-Disc set (which this deserves) detailing a lot more about the making of the film, the special effects used and maybe a featurette, or two. We have two commentaries, which was nice, but besides that we have not even ten minutes of extras about the film. It really had a lot of potential and that it’s potential was barely scratched is truly disappointing. The DVD-ROM had a LOT of stuff, but I rarely count that in my review since people who don’t have a computer with a DVD-ROM drive and internet access couldn’t watch it. If that was added on the main portion of the disc, my opinion (and rating) would be much higher. Still, it’s an awesome movie that demands a look. The movie is highly recommended, but rent the DVD, watch it a few times, and catch the commentaries, which were really good.
Overall Rating
6.0
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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