Emmerich-ized Reaction Shot Extravaganza

Tomorrow, of course, "Independence Day Resurgence", the long-gestating sequel to Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin's Kansas Corn cinematic faux-classic "Independence Day" (or ID4 for the marketing gurus), is finally set to drop after a twenty year wait. I'm so excited, even if the buzz on it has suddenly plummeted toward Ice Age temperatures. 

Hey, speaking of the Ice Age, I briefly considered returning to this blog's beloved (is that the right word?) tradition of posting "Independence Day" reaction shots to celebrate its sequel's release. But then I figured, maybe you, my faithful, frustrated readers are tired of "Independence Day" reaction shots. And fair enough. So here are some other Emmerich-ish reaction shots from his 2004 eco-disaster extravaganza "The Day After Tomorrow" in which the Ice Age returns. 

Emmerich-ized Reaction Shot Extravaganza

This is a standard-issue reaction shot to kick us off, but also important to note because it's about as reaction-y as our leading man, Jake Gyllenhaal, ever gets. He's nothing if not a serious actor and I can only imagine Mr. Emmerich counciling Gyllenhaal on Day 1 about the need for reaction shots, like this scene where he's staring up at fleeing CGI birds (along with Emmy Rossum, who goes for heightened curiosity), and Gyllenhaal nodding and then getting back to his dressing room and thinking to himself "Like hell I will" and then deciding to make every one of his reactions impassive. And Emmerich thinking why can't Gyllenhaal be more like.........

.........THIS GUY!!!!!!!

Or like the great Ian Holm who, in this frame, demonstrates how a mere raising of the eyebrows can communicate so much ominousness. 

Not, however, like the Dude on the Left who seems to have mis-interpreted "The Day After Tomorrow" as a wacky comedy.

The official facial expression, I imagine, of all President Blake's cabinet meetings.

I like this one for the woman in the background as she listens to the Supposed-To-Be Dick Cheney Vice President blather angrily and wrongly about everything. She's kind of twisting her lip, just a little, an expression that seems to suggest she's thinking more about lunch.

When you just found out at the dawn of a new Ice Age that the boy you like likes you.

Props to the librarian still taking questions at the reference desk in the immediate aftermath of a tidal wave that leveled New York.

Props to Gordon Masten who turns up for a single scene as "New York Bus Driver" solely to get wiped out by the massive tidal wave and still manages to wring genuine emotion out of the brief moment when he realizes this is it.

Ah yes. The classic Look At The Phone After The Phone Line Just Forebodingly Went Dead reaction shot. Bravo, Holm.

Emmy Rossum and Arjay Smith have just seen The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse; Jake Gyllenhaal has just seen the invisible oracle Uyulala.

They've all just seen Katy Perry ride by on a mechanized wooly mammoth.

MVP. 

White House Down

In “White House Down” director Roland Emmerich, bless his heart, attempts to reclaim the summer months from the wrenchingly self-serious superheroes. It is pure idiotic spectacle, $150 million trash, a pastiche gleefully, greedily cribbing from its predecessors. Consider: Channing Tatum is eventually running around in a blood-stained undershirt in an attempt to defend a liberal President who will not negotiate with terrorists from a zealous band of bad guys who have gone rogue in the name of misplaced militaristic patriotism. In other words, it’s John McClane teaming up with President James Marshall to do battle with General Francis X. Hummel.

The opening is a master class of Set-Up Absurdism, comically inorganic in the way that every line, every action, is merely laying groundwork for the festive paramilitary White House takeover to come. For instance, if someone mentions the tunnels beneath the White House that JFK used to smuggle in Marilyn Monroe, you know full well those tunnels will turn up later. (If you think that’s a spoiler, well, then I will refrain from mentioning the movie’s mentioning the White House burning down during the War of 1812.)

Tatum, who, it must be said, has a winning kind of self-deprecating charisma that is growing on me, is John Cale (and I was disappointed to learn it was not spelled Kael in an attempt by Emmerich to atone for his Mayor Ebert sins), a strapping wannabe secret service agent who fails his secret service interview with Carol Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal) because – gasp! – she has a past with John and knows he doesn’t “see things through.” You know, like his marriage to Melanie (Rachelle Lefevre) who, in accordance with Hollywood Dictum, must remain mostly on the sideline and be mean to her ex, though I got the feeling she fronts a politicized punk band by night. This is specifically why he squires his daughter Emily (Joey King) to the White House with him for his interview and an accompanying tour. She’s a sweeter Kaylie Hooper, a young politico, claiming righteous President James Sawyer as her hero, and her old man wants to give her a reason to look up to him. Oh, Cale, little do you know.

The Prez, played by Jamie Foxx, subdued but in control, is pushing for peace in the Middle East. This will be his undoing, as the US Capital Rotunda goes up in flames and the head of Sawyer’s Secret Service detail (James Woods), the week of his retirement (huzzah!), is forced to “crash” the White House. But soon enough the White House will be crashed into – more than once! – as terrorists make their demands, all sorts of things go kablooey, Tatum & Foxx play Buddy with genuine success, Emily slinks around “the safest house in the world” (“today it isn’t”) with her iPhone like a teen dream war correspondent, and, in a glorious case of thinking outside the box, a movie essentially trapped inside a residence (sprawling though it may be) still finds a way to work in a car chase.

The car chase is actually broadcast live to the whole world via various news channel reports that keep popping up like Sportscenter updates, evoking front row seats to America’s personal Armageddon. One of the film’s finest throwaways involves a newscaster claiming this is all a cover for a coup d'état. If the White House really was Down, well, I can only imagine Twitter would literally catch on fire from all the coup d'état claims. And it’s really these little bits where Emmerich & company excel. They keep things level even as the requisite nuclear launch codes are compromised by peppering in ridiculous one-liners and, best of all, offering a wonky supporting character in the form Donnie the Tour Guide (Nicolas Wright) who continually takes personal offense at the destruction of precious White House artifacts and metamorphoses from a weakling to a blazered commando.

At two hours and seventeen minutes it’s overlong, undermined by a few too many Reversals, the ultimate comeuppance of the bad guys is disappointingly pat, and Gyllenhaal unfortunately spends most of the movie jabbering on a headset from a remote location when I would have liked to see her sport a Rambo-era bandana and play with the boys. But hey, that’s the law of summer blockbuster averages, and the averages tip in Emmerich’s favor. “White House Down”, adrenalized to the last, is not based on an amusement park ride but it still feels like one.

Yes, WWIII is imminent, but don’t let that harsh your buzz. Politics are present, sure, but they are merely engines for the plot, and to wrestle any meaning from them is utter folly and I will not hear of it. The only American ideals in which the German Emmerich and his screenwriter, James Vanderbilt, are interested in are the ideals of its action movie forefathers. Ours is a nation founded on certain inalienable cinematic rights – landmarks blown to smithereens and the ghost of John McClane.