It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Rating: 4/10 (15 September 2004)

In this laughable attempt at a global disaster movie, Dennis Quaid plays Jack Hall, a government paleoclimatologist researching the cause of the previous Ice Age in Antarctica when the entire Larsen B ice shelf decides to take a walk. He warns the United Nations that global warming is causing the icecaps to melt, which will ultimately result in a massive disruption of the Northern Hemisphere's moderate climate and a new Ice Age. Asked when this will occur, he opines, "Maybe a hundred years, maybe a thousand." Turns out he was about a hundred years off: the next day, the British Isles are at the centre of a massive storm system drawing supercooled air from the upper atmosphere, and all the Brits are Individually Quick Frozen. On the other side of the world, massive tornadoes unexpectedly destroy Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, Hall's son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) and two friends are in New York City for an academic competition where, unbeknownst to them since the geniuses don't turn on the news, the next superstorm is forming right above their heads. A massive tidal wave strands them in the public library. After the newly formed Lake Manhattan freezes over, the majority of the library refugees decide to take their chances outside. Sam, his classmates, and about half a dozen others take shelter in a reading room and burn the books to keep warm, resulting in a pointless argument about censorship. (They couldn't have just burned Danielle Steel instead of Nietzsche? Better yet, how about the wooden furniture?) In the meantime, back in Washington, Hall learns that Sam is still alive in the Big Apsicle and, drawing on his experience in arctic climates, mounts an expedition with his two co-workers to rescue him.
To call the science in The Day After Tomorrow "implausible" would be an understatement. Willful suspension of disbelief is simply impossible. Apparently Emmerich, wanting to sound a warning about the dangers of global warning, was aware that superstorms simply could not form in such a short time, yet decided to accelerate the action anyway for entertainment value. Put another way, he tried to make a serious point with a deliberately stupid plot. (Good plan.)
Meanwhile, the human story is equally wretched, with the characters one-dimensional and the situations manipulative. Hall's wife, a doctor, elects to stay behind after everyone else at her hospital evacuates, so she can take care of the cute little bald boy with leukemia whose parents are missing. (Feel that tugging in your chest? It's Emmerich pulling on your heartstrings.) While walking to New York in a blizzard, tied together for safety, one of Hall's buddies falls through the skylight of a buried shopping mall. He cuts the rope, plummeting to his death, to save the others. ("Nooooooo!!!!")
On the other hand, the CGI (supplied by major effects houses such as ILM, Dream Quest, and Digital Domain, amongst others) is breathtaking for the most part, except for some rather obvious CG wolves.
When you see "Written by Roland Emmerich" and "Suggested by the book The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Streiber" in the credits, you know you're not going to see a Nova documentary. Art Bell never saw a bit of crank science he didn't like. Once upon a time Emmerich wrote a wonderful movie called Stargate, but since then his screen writing talent has devolved into movies that are long on eye candy and short on intelligence, such as Independence Day and Godzilla. Emmerich appears to be in competition with Michael Bay (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor) to see who can produce the loudest, stupidest blockbuster before he dies. Thanks to The Day After Tomorrow, Emmerich takes a solid lead.