Disaster: Big, Bigger, Biggest

Rating: 7/10 (19 June 2004)

I've always wondered if there's an upper limit to the global disaster genre. After nuclear Armageddon, alien invasions, zombie attacks, comet collisions, well, what's left but ecological catastrophe? In the "really bad weather" variant of movie house eschatology, the "Day After Tomorrow" delivers some terrific globe-as-spooky-ice house visuals, but suffers from the usual disaster movie defect, soapy multi-character story lines which put questions like "will he get the girl?" on equal footing with "will he survive the next ice age?" The juggle between such disparate tensions can only reassure the audience that however disastrous things may look, they can't be completely hopeless. After all, what fun is global disaster without a little dewy-eyed teen romance? As with most any disaster movie, CGI-enhanced appearances take the upper-hand over reality.