Rating: 
Summary: An Almost Good Movie Turns into a Soap Opera
Review: "The Day After" is one of the most hyped films ever made for TV and it almost (and I stress almost) lived up to its advertising. The problem with the film is not so much the acting, although the yells of "Jolene" come in far too many times and in far too shrill a voice, but with the story-line. Far too few of the many characters are built into full human beings--particularly the young farm family. When the characters are given more time, alas, the film tends to move towards soap opera with the farmer's daughter (no pun intended) having such lines as "I wish he would have left me a baby," etc. At the same time, several of the characters are rather unsympathetic--I really didn't like the eldest daughter or the father. This takes away from the film's power. With characters that you have seen far too many times and really do not care for,especially the rebellious daughter and dad, the viewer begins to not care that their world is about to be blown into atomic cinders.The film would have worked better with more emphasis on Jason Robarbs and the the people at the hospital in Lawrence, KS. His character, a pediatrician (msp?), is fully alive and rounded--you see his daughter and his wife and know enough about them to realize what they are like and how much they mean to Robarbs. The viewer can build some interest in them and their problems. The characters in the hospital bask in Robarbs glow (no pun intended) and become more than just stick figures as they interact with him and the strain of life after the attack.
The hyped special effects of the attack were not so special, even for the time it was shot with the use of x-ray pictures during the blasts to show people being vaporized and the use of stock footage, seen far too many times--it didn't work for me then nor does it today. The film does try to make its point, but with the exception of Robarbs, excellent as usual, the film falls flat. A truly good film about nuclear attack was released about the same time and was shown on American Playhouse. "Testament" had one small special effect but packed the full wallop that "The Day After" missed so woefully. The British made a dandy one called "Threads", but alas, these have yet to come to American DVD.
Rating: 
Summary: I still remember!
Review: I rememeber this movie like it was yesterday, and it still effects me to this day. I remember the scene were Jason Robards is in themiddle of the highway and or street. THe family that was locked in the house etc. I compare that movie to all thereafter and none have come close to what in my opinion is the truth; but I think from the looks of the day after tomarrow, it may just be the one!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing How a Movie Can Affect You
Review: November 1983 - in High School and watching with someone I desperately wanted to be my girlfriend. During the actual attack she cried in my arms as I saw in disbelief that horrific "x-ray" effect of people being disintegrated during the attack. Dating was suddenly the last thing on my mind. In a bit of dramatic irony, the day AFTER "The Day After," the Grucci Fireworks factory on Long Island exploded, killing two people. It was only a few miles away and cracked my bedroom window and prompted the same girl who was with me to call, crying hysterically because she thought that the boom was "it." When a movie moves you THAT much, it must be worth something. If you've never seen it, see it. Even if you are "pro Military" like me (I was a US Marine), it's worth seeing if only to remind you of the power you have and why people want to see "restraint" when it comes to flaunting that power.
Rating:
Summary: The Day After
Review: I was in my freshman year at the University of Kansas when ABC premiered the movie in November 1983. It was the Sunday and Monday before Thanksgiving. Of course, as a native Kansas Citian and a KU student, I recognized almost all the sscenes shot in both KC and Lawrence. I thought it was fitting to see the missles shooting out of the area between Wescoe Hall and the Military Sciences building. :) I believe that I had classes in both buildings that semester. The most striking scene of the movie was the mushroom cloud appearing over K-10 Highway towards Kansas City. For those of you two young or say that this movie is now out of date, it was definitely fitting for the times.
Rating:
Summary: Ifinately better than "Threads" or any other nuke film
Review: This is thee best out of all the nuke films and one of the best movies ever made. The scenario was very logical for the time and the cinematography was indeed light-years ahead of its time. I highly recommend this film to anyone who wants see what nuclear war is REALLY like, despite the fact that it was a bit toned down for the time. Don't even bother with "Threads", which was watered down by utterly pathetic filming and acting. Watch "The Day After" and be prepared to be blown through the back wall of your home theater!!
Rating: 
Summary: The ultimate anti-war movie
Review: Probably the most heartbreaking scene in "The Day After" is the one where four missiles bearing nuclear warheads zoom into a crystalline blue sky on a glorious spring morning from a hidden bunker in Kansas, while doctors and nurses at a nearby hospital watch in shock as the impact of what those missiles mean gradually hits them. Watching this film, we pray that scene never comes true; if it does, we can kiss the world goodbye. "The Day After" is probably the most gut-wrenching anti-war film ever made. It's set sometime in the last quarter of the 20th century; the decades-long cold war has turned burning hot, and the news broadcasts are turning hourly worse. We are in Lawrence, Kansas, the center of the United States, following the routines of ordinary people as they try to go about their lives while the world around them is going to hell -- a doctor and his wife, a farmer and his family, including his young daughter two days away from her wedding, a graduate student, a cynical college professor, and a young soldier about to be separated from his wife and baby. The hostilities between Russia and the United States, meanwhile, have gone beyond the point of no return; and the decision is made: nuke 'em. We watch the missiles being launched; we feel all the horror of the impending counterstrike, and then three stark words from an officer at the missile base: "We have incoming." Incoming doesn't begin to describe it. Two nuclear warheads hit nearby Kansas City, and the world explodes. The resulting scenes of destruction are unbelievable; and yet, they are all too believable. If the wrong finger hits the nuclear button, this could someday happen. The immediate scenes leading up to the nuclear strike are as compelling as the hit itself: shoppers at the supermarket grabbing up everything edible off the shelves; people bolting out of a college stadium in a panic dash for cover; a young bride-to-be coming downstairs to the family's fallout shelter carrying her wedding dress and her childhood teddy bear, the look of stark terror in her eyes competing with the realization that she will never wear that dress in any wedding; and her mother, grimly going about her business of making beds and tidying up the house, being carried kicking and screaming to shelter, refusing to accept the realization that her life as she knows it is finished. And after the devastation of the nuclear strike, as ashes continue to rain down from the sky for days, we realize that those who died in the attack may have been the fortunate ones; the survivors are left to face a horrible slow death by radiation sickness, starvation and anarchy. Nicholas Meyer didn't direct this film for shock value, although the shocks keep coming and don't let up; in smaller but telling ways he makes us feel all the devastation of total war. At the film's end, one of the survivors asks, "Is anybody out there? Anyone at all?" His guess is as good as ours. There are no redeeming moments in this movie. From the minute the first button was pushed, everything is gone. It's been said that "The Day After" is a dated film, but this is true only in the sense that the cold war, as we knew it from 1945 through the 1980s is over; as long as there are nuclear weapons around and anyone fanatic enough to even contemplate using them, it's a film with telling immediacy. When the film was first shown, some viewers asked, why didn't they say who started the war? Meyer shows us that the question is moot; no matter who started it, there will be precious few survivors left to point fingers. We emerge from watching "The Day After" emotionally devastated, drained, realizing that in a nuclear war, everyone, even the victors, will be the losers.
Rating:
Summary: My gosh its some movie
Review: I remember there was TREMEMNDOUS hype before the movie came out. Many many people were talking about this upcoming movie The Day After and how it graphically depicts nuclear war and its aftermath. On the first night it came out in 1983, 100 million people tuned in to watch it. Well, I was one of them, and Ill tell you its shocking, its chilling but it is some movie. We were all deeply affected by it and its just so apparent that nuclear weapons should not be used in war anymore. Theyre just too dangerous!!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent flick
Review: I had just turned twelve years old a month before this movie came out, and I had been enamored with atomic and thermonuclear weapons from about age 9 when I saw the movie Enola Gay. My family and I watched this movie together, and I was awestruck by the devastation depicted on screen. As a child of the eighties, I remember this movie setting the tone for a lot of anti-nuke movements, songs, art, and even more movies about the horrors of nuclear war. I also remember thinking then, and now, that if this movie were even slightly true, why would the owners of such devastating devices ever use them? Well, I believe that is the point of why the film was made. I don't think that anyone in their right mind in 1982 would have ever called for unilateral disarmament in hopes that the other side would follow suit, and here's why: Say I have a gun and you have a gun. I pull the trigger to shoot you, and you have 30 seconds to pull your trigger and shoot me and neither of us can move from our position. The first one to pull the trigger will die as well as the second one. That's why this movie is important, because Ronald Reagan changed his mind about winning a limited nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union after seeing this movie. He finally realized that the US could never win a nuclear war, and the only way to prevent one was to ensure MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) by the proliferation of nuclear arms. Pulling the trigger first didn?t matter, because the other guy was going to pull his trigger too. I also remember how the Europeans were upset by our staging of nukes in their countries, but they never realized that it was those nukes that kept them safe. The peaceniks were so scared of nuclear war, that they were ready to surrender to the Soviet Union and their (ultimately failed, thank you Mr. Reagan!) version of socialism (communism), but Ronnie?s nukes kept the Reds out of Western Europe and the Western hemisphere. Frankly, I am glad that the US has nukes, and is ready to use them at any given time to defend our country, as well as our allies. I am also glad that we have a no first strike policy to prevent the outbreak of nuclear war by some hothead a la Dr. Strangelove (my most favorite movie). However, I would never want to see "the button" pushed, and millions people die horrifically. So I continue to hope that the leaders of all countries who have nukes realize the dangers of an all out nuclear exchange, and adopt the same no first strike policy that the US has adopted.I had just turned twelve years old a month before this movie came out, and I had been enamored with atomic and thermonuclear weapons from about age 9 when I saw the movie Enola Gay. My family and I watched this movie together, and I was awestruck by the devastation depicted on screen. As a child of the eighties, I remember this movie setting the tone for a lot of anti-nuke movements, songs, art, and even more movies about the horrors of nuclear war. I also remember thinking then, and now, that if this movie were even slightly true, why would the owners of such devastating devices ever use them? Well, I believe that is the point of why the film was made. I don't think that anyone in their right mind in 1982 would have ever called for unilateral disarmament in hopes that the other side would follow suit, and here's why: Say I have a gun and you have a gun. I pull the trigger to shoot you, and you have 30 seconds to pull your trigger and shoot me and neither of us can move from our position. The first one to pull the trigger will die as well as the second one. That's why this movie is important, because Ronald Reagan changed his mind about winning a limited nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union after seeing this movie. He finally realized that the US could never win a nuclear war, and the only way to prevent one was to ensure MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) by the proliferation of nuclear arms. Pulling the trigger first didn?t matter, because the other guy was going to pull his trigger too. I also remember how the Europeans were upset by our staging of nukes in their countries, but they never realized that it was those nukes that kept them safe. The peaceniks were so scared of nuclear war, that they were ready to surrender to the Soviet Union and their (ultimately failed, thank you Mr. Reagan!) version of socialism (communism), but Ronnie?s nukes kept the Reds out of Western Europe and the Western hemisphere. Frankly, I am glad that the US has nukes, and is ready to use them at any given time to defend our country, as well as our allies. I am also glad that we have a no first strike policy to prevent the outbreak of nuclear war by some hothead a la Dr. Strangelove (my most favorite movie). However, I would never want to see "the button" pushed, and millions people die horrifically. So I continue to hope that the leaders of all countries who have nukes realize the dangers of an all out nuclear exchange, and adopt the same no first strike policy that the US has adopted.
Rating:
Summary: Anti Nuclear Film Needed Character Development
Review: "The Day After" was Hollywood's answer to the Reagan Administration's "Evil Empire" drumbeat. Conflicts in Central America, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the largest arms buildup in the post-war period generated a climate of genuine fear. With great fanfare and an expensive press campaign, ABC screened "The Day After" over successive nights on prime time television. A number of movies along similar themes were in circulation at the time, and "The Day After" was easily the biggest, but not the best. Unlike "Testament", which worked inexorably on character development, "The Day After" blitzed through its two dozen characters in the Before time in short snippets, and as a result, when the Bombs fall (and there are more than one), we don't really know them that well, and as a consequence, it is hard to empathize with the individuals. Jason Robards is one of the exceptions. The effects are excellent; the scenes of the missiles rising out of the plains are worth the watching, and the airbursts over a crowded highway are equally unmatched. But for the most part, as the characters one-by-one develop radiation sickness, we see them as specimens and not individual people. (The British films "Threads" and "The War Game" also suffer this problem). The low-budget "Testament" with Jane Alexander succeeds where these films failed. Trivia point: After the last episode, ABC ran a panel discussion which included the original Dr. Strangelove himself, Henry Kissinger. It was delightful to see Dr. K absolutely foaming at the mouth as he denounced the movie as fear-mongering. The film is now hopelessly dated, since it is entirely postulated upon a massive Soviet-US exchange. Yes, both nations still have thousands of warheads, but our current threats, if equally serious, are not of this magnitude.
Rating:
Summary: A real life zombie movie
Review: I was born in the year 1983 and I always remembered hearing my mom talk about this movie that came on tv 3 days before I was born. It was called "The Day After". I finaly saw this film and was completely amazed at the images on screen. I'm a big B grade horror movie fan, particularly overly gory zombie movies. As I was watching "The Day After" It struck me that the survivors were nothing more than decaying undead straight out of "Dawn of The Dead". This movie really made me think. I am an infantryman in the Marine corps and the whole prospect of being torn between duty and family in a situation such as really hit home.
|
