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DAfT is 'Undesirable', say the critics .....

One of the more user-friendly sections of The Gloomiad is its 'Review of reviews', which today (The Guardian, June 1) helpfully covers The Day after Tomorrow (aka: DAfT):

"The science might be questionable, said The Sunday Times's Cosmo Landesman, but people will flock to the film not for the ecological message, but for the destruction, 'and this Emmerich delivers brilliantly ... For once, the special effects are special.'

Christopher Tookey agreed in The Daily Mail, praising the computer-generated effects. However, 'the characterisation makes that in Twister seem deep and the dialogue is as cheesy as any fan of bad movies could desire.'

'You'd struggle to get bored during The Day After Tomorrow, but it's even tougher to keep a straight face,' added Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph.

If Emmerich was trying to emulate the great disaster films of the 1970s, said Will Self in the London Evening Standard, he had forgotten that those movies, although simplistic, were star-studded. 'When celluloid heroes were being run through such ordeals, it made a plush seat in a warm, dark cinema seem that much more attractive, while at the same time placing their onscreen travails comfortably beyond the common weal,' said Self. 'It's not that Quaid isn't a perfectly OK actor, but he is not a big star.'"

What you can't see online, however, is The Grid called 'How the critics saw it'. This analyses all reviews and allots them with a score between 1: Unprintable to 5: Unmissable.

DAfT, I'm delighted to note, averages a bathetic 2.5, just above the category 'Undesirable'. The Times is even judged to have awarded the film a desperate 1. Says it all really.

Philip, "You'd be DAfT not to get a patio heater." Coffee on the ..... Oh! It's raining.