It just tries too hard...

Rating: 3/10 (5 February 2005)

I got the DVD of "The Day After Tomorrow" for Christmas, and I finally decided to sit down and watch it last night. I had pretty high expectations going in to it. I like 'end-of-the-world' films, so I had high hopes for this one, but man was I disappointed. Let me start by saying that the acting is extremely wooden. I like Dennis Quaid, but he seems really emotionless and bland in this movie. Jake Gyllenhaal is the same. The only positive I saw from the stars in this one was Emmy Rossum. At least it seemed that she tried to overcome the uninspired script and wooden acting from her co-stars. This movie tries way to hard to be something it's not. Roland Emmerich definitely wore out his welcome with this one. I mean, it tries to be "Twister" when Los Angeles is being destroyed by mega-tornadoes. It tries to be "Armageddon" when massive balls of hail strike Tokyo. It tries to be "Deep Impact" when the Statue of Liberty is destroyed, not to mention instead of running from a massive tidal wave, the characters are running from an invisible wave of unbelievably cold air. Also, Emmerich seems to steal from himself and try to make this seem too much like "Independence Day". It also seems to try to be too much like "Farenheit 9/11" in a sense that some people argued that this was another anti-Republican, pro-Envrionment spat, 'George Bush/Dick Cheney is ruining the environment and it must stop now' thing. In the end though, "The Day After Tomorrow" just does not stand out among the relatively recent crowd of end-of-the-world movies that we've seen in Hollywood. Overall, the movie does have it's entertaining points. Other things just don't make sense at all, and you'll realize it immediately (see: Wolves). The sole-entertainment value of the movie saves it for me from giving it a worse grade. 3 out of 10.