The BBC -- Shill for Emmerich?

[File under: Critics with even less credibility than Michael Medved.]

Filmbrain doesn't normally turn to the BBC for film reviews. While they are a wonderful source for international news, their film coverage is a bit.....pedestrian. Today, they have reached a new low. 'Critic' James King (otherwise known as Movie Lounger) filed a 450 word puff piece on Roland Emmerich's latest ejaculate, The Day After Tomorrow.

First off, his buzz and enthusiasm is based on having seen "23 minutes of FX and music-free footage" (which is probably all that's left after the special effects). He talks about how the film is "down to earth and immediate" and that there are moments that "could almost be documentary." (But of what? The last NYC ice age?) After that bit of smooching, King dives in for the full rim job:

"Believe it or not, I think that Roland Emmerich has always been making important socio-political points behind his popcorn veneer. And yes, I'll even stretch that statement to Godzilla. Scratch beneath the surface of the explosions and bizarre ever-changing size of the green beast, and there's some interesting points about America's bull-in-a-china-shop attitude to crisis control and intolerance of other cultures."

Filmbrain is practically speechless. Nobody loves a bit of America bashing more than he, but this is ludicrous. Fine, King has caught us out -- Americans are intolerant of radioactive lizards. Shame on us. Good work Roland! Yours is certainly the greatest socio-political film voice since Godard!

It's pretty much a truism that Emmerich is a hack of the highest order, and his films are moronic, insulting and just plain bad. Sure, he blows stuff up real good, but his storylines, characters, and dialog are barely one dimensional. If a machine could generate screenplays, this is what it would produce.

The early reviews on Day After Tomorrow have been pretty dismal, and Filmbrain predicts that the trend will continue. (However, it still will gross about a gazillion dollars.)

Comments

[Marleigh]

If you're going to criticize America, there are better things to harp on than our legacy of crappy remakes of Asian cinema. Besides that, I fail to see how the fictional response of Americans to attacks by a giant lizard is supposed to exemplify our actual response to any crisis.

I sincerely doubt that Master King would claim that the military chaps from 28 Days Later are typical examples of how the British would respond to a national crisis, even if it was a plague that created packs of flesh-eating zombies. What a douchebag.

[JoJo the Chimp]

I've GOT to see the Matthew Broderick version of Godzilla one of these days.

Meanwhile, I can never understand why the producers of "Independence Day"" were never sued by Arthur C. Clarke for ripping off "Childhood's End."

[James King]

Well it's good to see that my pieces for BBC Films Online were read, even if you didn't agree with them.

Even I actually disagreed with my Day After Tomorrow piece after seeing the finished movie - it just wasn't very good - though my points about Emmerich and his environmental and political concern still stand. Yes, he's a hack. Yes, he's corny beyond belief. But it's clear that he's trying to make a point in his films about those in charge of the US.

The idea that the American government ignored warnings about the greenhouse effect are really rammed home in The Day After Tomorrow and I still stand by my statement that Godzilla has something to say about US crisis management. It took Jean Reno's French calm to actually save the day.

And as for "that" scene in Independence Day, where Pullman shouts his patriotism from the highest rooftops; if you can't see that for the tongue-in-cheek comment on US jingoism that it is, then I'm slightly worried. Emmerich is taking the piss not as an edgy arthouse director, but as one of the most financially successful mainstreamers in Hollywood. He's having a laugh at (literally) America's expense.

Sure, he could still make his movies less predictable though.

As for 28 Days Later, there's never even any hint that's it's a comment on the British attitude to a crisis, so why read it as such? Emmerich's ramming his political points down our throat and begging them to be noticed. Danny Boyle didn't have any political points in 28 Days Later in the first place.

Still a great film though - and hopefully my quote on the poster saying as such will lessen my position as a "douchebag" in a your eyes.

Clearly, Emmerich's not Godard - but I'm just reading what he puts up there on the screen, albeit in not-very-subtle giant neon lettering.

But hey - I don't write for BBC Films anymore so I can't take any more back-handers from the lovely people at 20th Century Fox. Joke.

Thanks for reading,

James

[FIlmbrain]

James --

Thanks for the great (and humourous) reply.

My original post was written back in May -- when Filmbrain was just a toddler in the blogosphere. I'm far less angry now than I was, but I still loathe Emmerich and everything about him.

Who are you writing for now? Have you begun your piece about how Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is the Citizen Kane of our time? Just joking.