ROLAND EMMERICH

Bil’s rating (out of 5):  BBB. 

USA, 2004.  Twentieth Century Fox, Centropolis Entertainment, Lions Gate Films, Mark Gordon Productions.  Story by Roland Emmerich, Screenplay by Roland Emmerich, Jeffrey Nachmanoff.  Cinematography by Ueli Steiger.  Produced by Roland Emmerich, Mark Gordon.  Music by Harald Kloser.  Production Design by Barry Chusid.  Costume Design by Renee April.  Film Editing by David Brenner.  

The world is coming to an end once again, and this time it is not a meteor or the earth’s core that has betrayed us, it is the polar ice caps! Global warming has increased to such a degree that the caps have melted and shifted the main Atlantic current, causing an ice age to take over the entire northern hemisphere of the planet and plunge most of western civilization into a deep freeze. Of course, it kills millions of people, but one earnest scientist who foresaw the whole thing (Dennis Quaid) has every intention of cross-country skiing all the way to New York to rescue his son (Jake Gyllenhaal) who is trapped with a few other survivors in a public library. Stunning visual effects basically make up the entire entertainment quotient of the movie, with destructive tornadoes, tidal waves and subzero winds popping up at every turn to throw you into a frenzy of fear, and in the first third of the movie, it actually works! Sadly, the rest doesn’t really follow through, and the excitement doesn’t last long enough before a premature ending. I don’t see the point of even going into detail about how shallow and cliched the characters are, just to say that it’s nice to see director Roland Emmerich sticking to the kind of movie he does pretty well (Independence Day, Stargate) instead of the kind of movie he totally sucks at (The Patriot).