by MATTHEW HAYS

Though Hollywood is regarded as a secular town with no sound morals or religious values, there has been one sacred commandment established that has stood since 9/11: Thou shalt not destroy Manhattan on the big screen.

With his latest film, The Day After Tomorrow, writer-director-producer Roland Emmerich has done just that. And how! Both coasts come under environmental fire in the first 40 minutes of the film, in particular Los Angeles, which is shattered by an army of tornadoes in a sequence that is undeniably riveting. Cars and buses fly, loads of people get killed and skyscrapers are grated into half-eaten corn cobs. But lest you think you're inside another mindless summer blockbuster, listen up: Emmerich has declared that these are special effects with a social conscience.

Whether or not this will actually alter the course of U.S. environmental policy remains to be seen, but the plot's initial set-up is oddly credible. As Dennis Quaid, who here plays the Disaster Hero protagonist, warns of coming climate-change calamity, a rather dim, profit-worshipping ideologue in the White House brushes such concerns aside, citing the huge cost associated with the Kyoto Treaty (sound familiar?). You got your warning, dummies! As rules of the Disaster Movie dictate - from The Poseidon Adventure to The Towering Inferno - you pay up. Much has been made of the fact that Hollywood films have become less and less politically-oriented since their hay day in the '70s. (Witness the hot potato that is Fahrenheit 9/11, despite the fact that it's guaranteed to turn an outrageous profit for whoever ends up distributing it.) Thus a mainstream movie attempting to make American audiences think about the effects of their government's criminal non-action on the environmental front must be seen as laudable. Bubble gum for the brain? Well, it's entertaining, though Al Gore's endorsement of the film seems more funny than anything else.

Aside from its political aspirations, there is the fact that watching stuff get wrecked is just plain fun. As Susan Sontag has noted, we humans have an endless fascination with depictions of all things catastrophic - and this film boasts some extremely well-handled annihilation. (An added bonus is that the screenplay pays homage to the Irwin Allen School of Cornball Dialogue.) Another layer of oddity will come for Montreal audiences as they watch our burg sit in for Manhattan; amid Planet of the Apes-style images of Lady Liberty, Old Montreal gets a good tidal-wave soaking, while I'm sure I saw flashes of McGill University also getting blown to smithereens (never liked that school much anyway).

Certainly, while watching this film the specter of 9/11 can't help but seep into one's mind. How can it not, given its place in history as the most mediated catastrophe ever, repeated on TV infinite times from so many angles? Emmerich has clearly packed in some glimpses of wish fulfillment, with a few rescue sequences that involve people helicoptered off of Manhattan skyscraper rooftops. And it really does say something about the state the world when watching Mother Nature destroy and kill feels almost comforting compared to the alternative - which would be terrorists attacking Manhattan again.

The Day After Tomorrow opens Friday, May 28

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