《后天》的英文影评

"The Day After Tomorrow" is a disaster movie, but it isn't a disastrous one. But if Roland Emmerich really thought he was making a movie with a message, he didn't quite succeed - to be honest, Emmerich is to serious film-making as Naomi Wolf is to recommending "Voluptuous" magazine. The fact that the movie begins with the Twentieth Century Fox logo under stormy skies doesn't make it any more significant. Well-intentioned it may be, but the movie's plot takes second place to the imagery - the opening credits over an icy landscape, the massive weather systems over the planet, colossal hailstones pelting down on Tokyo, snowstorms over India, tidal waves - and the numerous effects houses make it an eye candy feast, especially for people with a grudge against the Big Apple (kudos to Industrial Light and Magic, Digital Domain and all the less renowned FX companies involved). So on that level, it works; the music by Harald Kloser and Thomas Wanker is also a bonus, being more restrained and serious in its support than is usually the way with Emmerich movies. And then there's the script - it has a whole load of characters but doesn't do much with any of them. Example: Climatologist Dennis Quaid's relationship with son Jake Gyllenhaal doesn't seem to be as estranged as it's intended to be, and

similarly the friendship Quaid has with a longtime colleague gets about as much emphasis as the crush his younger colleague has on fellow scientist Tamlyn Tomita (and the movie pays for it later on in a sequence shamelessly ripped off from "Vertical Limit," which has little of the emotional resonance it should). In fact, all the human elements - Gyllenhaal's repressed feelings for classmate Emmy Rossum, his doctor mother Sela Ward's problems with a young patient, etc - all of them are underdeveloped or just plain undeveloped, and some moments practically scream "Contrived Climax Ahoy!" Those moments are there because "The Day After Tomorrow" doesn't have an enemy as a natural outgrowth of its story; the elements aren't really villainous as they have no concept of right or wrong, and the closest thing to a villain here is the current administration in the White House, so Emmerich and co-writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff have to impose a tangible enemy (why else are those wolves there?) on the proceedings. This does help things from getting totally boring in the second half, though it's still pretty watchable even then - but if some more thought had been put into the screenplay, like exploring the characters or developing the promising ideas therein (like Americans fleeing to Mexico, or further looks at the Government side), it would have carried more weight and made the movie into more than an improvement on "Godzilla."

As it is, it's a competently done if implausible attention-holder that wants to be more; that it actually had the potential to be more makes it a bit of a disappointment, but at least it's a watchable one

第二篇：英文影视赏析——后天(the day after tomorrow)

课 程 论 文

题 目： The Day After Tomorrow

学生姓名 指导教师

二级学院 外国语学院 专 业 英 语

班 级 学 号

课程名称 英文影视赏析 得 分

2010 年 11 月 14 日

金陵科技学院

The Day after Tomorrow

1. Introduction

The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science-fiction disaster film that depicts the catastrophic effects of global warming in a series of extreme weather events that usher in a new ice age. It did well at the box office, grossing $542,771,772 internationally. Domestically, it is the sixth highest grossing movie not to be number 1 in the US box office (behind My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Alvin and the Chipmunks and its sequel, Sherlock Holmes, and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs), but worldwide, it is third behind only Ice Age 3 and Casino Royale. The movie was filmed in Montreal, and is the highest grossing Hollywood film in history to be filmed in Canada (if adjusted for inflation).

2. Plot

Jack Hall is a paleoclimatologist who is on an expedition in Antarctica with two colleagues, Frank and Jason , drilling for ice core samples on the Larsen Ice Shelf for the NOAA when the ice shelf breaks off from the rest of the continent, and Jack almost falls to his death. Jack presents his findings on global warming at a United Nations conference in New Delhi where diplomats, including the Vice President of the United States are unconvinced by Jack's theory.

However, Jack's concerns resonate with Professor Terry Rawson of the Hedland Climate Research Centre in Scotland. Two buoys in the North Atlantic simultaneously show a massive drop in the ocean temperature, and Rawson concludes that melting of the polar ice has begun disrupting the North Atlantic current. He contacts Jack, whose paleoclimatological weather model holds reconstruction data of the climate change that caused the first Ice Age, to predict what will happen. Jack believed that the events would not happen for a hundred or a thousand years, but he, Frank, Jason, and NASA's meteorologist Janet Tonkawa (Tamlyn Tomita) build a forecast model with his, Rawson's, and Tonkawa's data.

Across the world, violent weather causes mass destruction, including a snowstorm greatly impacting New Delhi, a hailstorm ultimately destroying Tokyo, Japan, and a large outbreak of tornadoes wrecking Los Angeles. The U.S. President authorizes the FAA to suspend air traffic over the United States due to severe turbulence. The situation worsens when three massive hurricane-like blizzard super

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storms begin to form over the northern hemisphere, with their eyes pulling down super-cooled air that causes anything in contact with it to instantly freeze, thus heralding the predicted ice age in seven to ten days.

Meanwhile, Jack's son, Sam, (Jake Gyllenhaal) is in New York City for an academic competition with his friends Brian and Laura (Arjay Smith and Emmy Rossum), where they also befriend a student named J.D. On the flight over, there is severe turbulence, and Sam grabs Laura's hand in fright. During the competition, the weather becomes massively violent with intense winds and flooding rains. Sam calls his father, making a promise to be on the next train home. Unfortunately, the storm worsens, forcing subways and Grand Central Terminal to close. As the storm worsens in Manhattan, Sam and his friends seek refuge in the New York Public Library, burning books to stay alive.

While the survivors in the northern United States are forced to stay inside due to the storm, the President orders to evacuate the southern half of the country. Jack sets off for Manhattan to find his son, accompanied by Frank and Jason. Their truck crashes into a snow-covered tractor-trailer just past Philadelphia, so the group continues on snowshoes. During the journey, Frank falls through the glass roof of a snowbound shopping mall. As Jason and Jack try to pull Frank up, the glass under them continues to crack; Frank sacrifices himself by cutting the rope. In another incident, the U.S. President's motorcade is fatally caught in the superstorm, leaving the U.S. Vice President in charge.

In the library, Sam warns everyone to stay indoors, but few listen. The small group that remains breaks the vending machine for food. Laura is afflicted with blood poisoning, so Sam, Brian, and J.D. must search for penicillin in a Russian cargo ship that drifted inland, and are attacked by escaped wolves from the New York Zoo. The eye of the super storm begins to pass over the city with its ?150 °F (?101 °C) temperatures, and the entire New York City skyline begins to freeze. The three return to the library with medicine, food, and supplies, making it to safety.

During the deep freeze, Jack and Jason take shelter in an abandoned Wendy's restaurant, then resume their journey after the storm dissipates, finally arriving in New York City. They find the library buried in snow, but find Sam's group alive and are rescued by Chinook helicopters. The new President orders search and rescue teams to look for other survivors, having been given hope by the survival of Sam's group. The movie concludes with two astronauts looking down at Earth from the International

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Space Station, showing most of the northern hemisphere covered in ice, and a major reduction in pollution.

3. Opinions

3.1 Reception

The movie generated mixed reviews from both the science and entertainment communities. The online entertainment guide, Rotten Tomatoes, rated the movie at 45%, with an average rating of 5.3/10. Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun-Times, praised the film's special effects, giving the film three stars out of four. Environmental activist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot called The Day After Tomorrow a great movie and lousy science."

In a USA Today editorial by Patrick J. Michaels, a Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and global warming skeptic, Michaels called the movie "propaganda," noting, "As a scientist, I bristle when lies dressed up as 'science' are used to influence political discourse." In a Space Daily editorial by Joseph Gutheinz, a college instructor and retired NASA Office of Inspector General, Senior Special Agent, Gutheinz called the movie "a cheap thrill ride, which many weak-minded people will jump on and stay on for the rest of their lives." Pale climatologist William Hyde of Duke University was asked, on rec.arts.sf.written, whether he would be seeing the film; he responded that he would not unless someone was to offer him $100. Other readers of the newsgroup took this as a challenge, and (despite Hyde's protests) raised the necessary funds. Hyde's review, which criticized the film's portrayal of weather phenomena that stopped at national borders, and finished by saying that it was "to climate science as Frankenstein is to heart transplant surgery", was quoted in New Scientist.

In 2008, Yahoo! Movies listed The Day After Tomorrow as one of Top 10 Scientifically Inaccurate Movies. The film was criticized for depicting several different meteorological phenomena occurring over the course of hours, instead of the possible time frame of several decades or centuries.

Over its four-day Memorial Day opening, the film grossed $85,807,341; however, it still ranked #2 for the weekend, behind Shrek 2's $95,578,365 4-day tally, however The Day After Tomorrow led the per-theater average chart with a 4-day average of $25,053, compared to Shrek 2's 4-day average of $22,633. At the end of its

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box office run, it grossed $186,740,799. Its worldwide gross was $542,771,772.

3.2 Criticism

There was some controversy regarding the casting of Kenneth Welsh as the Vice-President of the United States due to his striking physical resemblance to then Vice-President Dick Cheney. Roland Emmerich later confirmed that he deliberately chose Welsh for that very reason. Emmerich stated that the characters of the President and Vice-President in the film were intended to be a not-so-subtle criticism of the environmental policies of the Presidency of George W. Bush. The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the film.

In response to accusations of insensitivity by including scenes of New York City being destroyed less than three years after the September 11th attacks, Emmerich claims that it was necessary to depict the event as a means to showcase the increased unity people now have when facing a disaster, because of 9/11.

A number of scientists were critical of the scientific aspects of the film:

Daniel P. Schrag, a paleoclimatologist and professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University, expressed both support and concern about the film, stating that "On the one hand, I'm glad that there's a big-budget movie about something as critical as climate change. On the other, I'm concerned that people will see these over-the-top effects and think the whole thing is a joke. . . We are indeed experimenting with the Earth in a way that hasn't been done for millions of years. But you're not going to see another ice age – at least not like that."

Marshall Shepherd, a research meteorologist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center expressed similar sentiments, stating that "I'm heartened that there's a movie addressing real climate issues. But as for the science of the movie, I'd give it a

D minus or an F. And I'd be concerned if the movie was made to advance a political agenda."

4. Conclusion

In my opinion, this film is very excellent. It presents the disaster maybe happen in the future. It is not just a film to frighten people, but a film to remind us of the importance of the environment. We are very small when we face the force of the nature. So we should be friendly with the nature. Then we can live a better life.

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