A Failure

Rating: 2/10 (1 June 2004)

First of all, I only saw this movie because "Shrek 2" was sold out. I figured it would be decent to see the special effects, even though I knew Emmerich was a manipulative hack of a director. I can ignore the scientific inaccuracy if the movie was entertaining, but unfortunately it wasn't. Yeah, it shows tornado's ravaging LA and waves destroying NY, but I wanted to see the human side of it. I wanted to see people run for cover, hide, do whatever it takes to survive. Instead of that we just get some extremely wide shots of the random destruction. The buildings are made to look almost empty, just shells being destroyed by big bad mother nature. The disasters just didn't seem like disasters to me. It was all a monumental let down. And I'll only mention the fact that in the second half of the movie our heroes spend their time running from COLD AIR and horribly rendered CGI wolves.
The story is filled with clichés that we've all seen before. You've got the cheesy love story between kids, the obligatory scene of self-sacrifice, the sick child, and perhaps worst of all, the homeless guy with a dog.
I like Dennis Quaid, but his part really was standard crap. Jake Gyllenhal is too old to be convincing as a 17 year old, and plays pretty much the same character in all of his movies. I liked watching Emmy though, perhaps the only thing I could look forward to during the movie were the scenes with her in them.
"The Day After Tomorrow" was directed by a hack, and plays like it was directed by a hack. Overall the film sucks. Don't go see it....