Mid-90s throwback, great action (but you'll have watched that in the trailers) and after that a set of slightly 2D human reactions and messages regarding the environment- Great effects, only a so-so film

Rating: Null/10 (27 May 2004)

Watched this on UK Preview today, a decent half of it's in the trailer but luckily there's some stuff left to watch afterwards. The money's on the screen along with what little script the actors have to work with.
A disaster movie takes us back to the mid-90s though, it's better than Daylight, Deep Impact, Armageddon (easily), though its characters can be accused of lacking dimension like those in Twister. Volcano doesn't even register on the radar, but Dante's Peak had better acting and just the one disaster in a localized area to deal with.
Pretty much the best shot in the movie is when the very first proper US disaster scenes finish. The film's very sanitized, there's little death on camera (no time to show it, never mind the certificate) and there's no easy way out for America as shown by the other characters Dennis Quaid is in contact with. There's a minimum of sentiment throughout the film, any other messages are more subtle (like the cute blasted dog has to live). It also seems movies involving NY getting wiped out are now permissible again post-September 11. Showing so few deaths on camera restricted the sentimentality to the lead adult characters and even then, it was muted. As so many characters were UNselfish though, you could have accused the film of being slightly unrealistic but the human reactions to a disaster are understandably random.
What you'll either find either more suspenseful or just boring is the human struggle after the great CGI destruction, and then you get some gallows humour and irony and the rest of it's about one quest. Again, the money's on the screen. That's about it though. It was good enough for an empty blockbuster, not as dead-brained as Van Helsing but not as funny either, and a different style of action to Troy. In short, The Day After Tomorrow's a bit of a throwback and a DVD Chapter-stop/Widescreen TV show-off flick. It does have an excellent, simple soundtrack score though.
Whilst I enjoyed it, if you have a widescreen TV you could rent it and enjoy it just as much if you've been unfortunate enough to see the trailer(s) where you were stupidly shown far too many of the money shots. It's not crap- just overexposed by its distributor.