'I think we are on the verge of a major climate shift!'

Rating: 7/10 (8 January 2013)

Though this film was made in 2004 and too few people realized the implications of Writer/Director Roland Emmerich's sci-fi fantasy as being in many ways a call to attention of the ignoring of the global climate due to our interference with the natural aspects of this planet, watching it again in 2013, with the backlashes of the hideous hurricanes and ice storms and the tsunamis and the drought and the hottest year on record being 2012, hopefully will provide a bit more serious look at the concept THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW offers. Yes, it is exaggerated for impact and the visual effects tend to take over the personal stories that lie so closely under the surface, but watch it and think. This is where we likely are headed - or something very like it.
Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) is a Paleoclimatologist stationed in the Antarctica where he finds that a sheet of ice the size of Rhode Island has sheared off. 'Our climate is fragile. At the rate we're polluting the environment and burning fossil fuels, the ice caps will soon disappear.' Concurrently the planet is witnessing severe weather changes - and Jack's son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is in New York with friend Laura (Emmy Rossum) and others when enduring an endless rainstorm they witness a massive tidal wave in addition to freezing cold temperatures that could possibly kill them. In the background is Sam's physician mother (Sela Ward) who brings a sense of personal agony to the realization that the world is heading for a next Ice Age. From there the story is a matter of Jack's swearing to save his son trapped in the Library in New York and warning the President (Perry Blake) to take his head out of the sand and realize that the extermination of the human race is possible if evacuations South are not begun. How it ends is predictable and makes the film too shallow, but the message is strong and one we must all heed.
The special effects are extraordinarily fine and the cast delivers the sub-stories with skill. Yes, it can be viewed as corny and overblown and a bit on the sanguine side, but the point of the film is well worth our serious attention. Just reflect on the events of the past year and the few years before that and try to deny that we are indeed harming our environment and future.
Grady Harp