The Day After Tomorrow movie poster
Watching The Day After Tomorrow feels an awful lot like yesterday. A reworking of standard cliches from disaster movies like Independence Day, Armageddon, Twister and a zillion others, the coolest thing about the movie is that it shows how far special effects have come.
Using CGI techniques and gynormous budgets the folks behind classic disaster movies like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno could only dream about, the special effects are indeed impressive and by far the best thing about The Day After Tomorrow. But I don’t understand how the filmmakers can realistically flood New York City with water and then freeze the whole place over by ten-degree increments, yet they can’t write a decent line of dialogue?
Also, watching this movie is the only time in my life I’ve ever felt that being such a mediocre science student was actually an advantage. While Dennis Quaid and Ian Holm manage to turn in unembarrassing performances, as “scientists who see the disaster coming but nobody will listen to until it’s too late,” even I could see that Quaid’s paleoclimatologist character is motivated by movie logic rather than scientific logic. Jake Gyllenhaal and his big blue eyes are impressive as Quaid’s moody son whose relationship with dad is at stake along with the fate of the rest of the work.
This depiction of what it might be like if the climate of our entire planet (minus Africa and Australia, which are mysteriously not included in the movie) were to change drastically in a matter of days does have some fun moments. Some of them are even intentional.
My advice is to sit back and enjoy the far-fetched spectacle for what it is, a forgettable popcorn movie destined to make just enough money to ensure that Director Roland Emmerich will have the chance to make another version of this same story in a year or two.