Director Roland Emmerich is an “over-the-top” director. He’s responsible for two of the worst summer blockbuster movies ever, Independence Day (1996) and Godzilla (1998). And now you can add a third, The Day After Tomorrow is possibly the worst film I’ve ever seen. It’s cheesy, predictable, laughable, and frankly made for dummies, like most of Emmerich's films. But it’s not so much the quality of his latest film, or lack of, that I want to discuss.

Many scenes from The Day After Tomorrow bothered me, particularly the one showing Americans racing across the southern border as Mexican troops attempt to turn them back. Emmerich is preaching in his film, and after looking back at some of his other films, he’s been doing this for some time now.

For example, when Aliens blew up the White House in Independence Day, what are the odds that was some kind of a sick symbolic gesture Emmerich was employing? I don’t know, but consider this, he once told the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, “I would never want to be an American.” Ironic how some foreign filmmakers come here, get rich, and yet look down on us.

I have read parts of the entire transcript and his point was clear. When asked, he alluded to an America that is not as democratic as we think it is, “America is the oldest democracy in the world. Since then they have totally developed backwards. Europe was most of the time under monarchic influence [sic], but is today three or four times as democratic as America.”

This is the same guy who said his latest movie deals with the “only problem big enough to force all the countries of the world to stop fighting and work together to save the planet.”

This editorial has turned political because Emmerich made his movie political. He is entitled to his opinions and his subversive philosophies should come as no surprise if you have paid even the slightest bit of attention to his movies. Think about the countless cinematic destructions of American symbols in his movies. At first, I was among those who thought, “Hey, it’s just a movie.” That was when I first watched Independence Day. But now, I’m not buying it. Not convinced? How about this quote:

“We were very, very insistent in keeping the subversive nature of the film [The Day After Tomorrow] intact,” the director was quoted by the Australian publication The Age.

And yet we allow him, we pay him, we support him to make these movies. He’s getting rich in America and running home and telling everyone how duped we’ve been by our political leaders and how we’re no longer the great democracy we think we are.

The Day After Tomorrow contains countless clichés, absurd scenes, and laughable lines. But most importantly, the movie is based on bad science or virtually no science at all.

“Scientifically, it's about as far from reality as you could get,” Robert C. Balling, a climatologist at Arizona State University, told the Salt Lake Tribune. He added, “Leave it to Hollywood to find a way to politicize the weather.” In the movie tornadoes lay waste to Los Angeles, the British Isles are turned into a sheet of ice, and Tokyo is hit with hail the size of bowling balls.

Emmerich, quoted by the Washington Times, admitted as much saying “Yes, it is over the top, but it has to be. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a Hollywood movie.” His low standards for Hollywood movies is disturbing, but does explain his complete failure as a filmmaker. Frankly there are plenty of others like him who feel the same way, but that’s another editorial.

The Day After Tomorrow portrays our political leaders as stupid. Fine, believe that if you want, as I know some of you do. But is it okay for a Hollywood studio to allow a director to make movies that seem anti-America in nature? 20th Century Fox, I’m sure, could care less after the movie did $80 million in its opening weekend.

Look closely at how we are portrayed in this movie. It is an America represented as stupid, ignorant, and wasteful. Artistic license, I know, but how sad. Are we perfect? No. But I see an America that represents good things, and one that so many people want to tear down. That’s the saddest thing of all.

–Chris

Chris Wehner is a film critic for the Movie Review & Screenplay Database (www.iscriptdb.com), editor-in-chief (and publisher) of Screenwriters Monthly, author of Screenwriting on the Internet: Researching, Writing, & Selling Your Script on the Web (2000) and Who Wrote That Move? Screenwriting in Review: 2000-2002 (2003), script reviewer, and founder of ScreenwritersUtopia.com. He is also Vice President of Development for MoviePartners, Inc. He is currently developing (and writing) several projects for various companies. He has been involved with screenwriting for nearly 10 years and in many different capacities.