And the Weather for This Week....This Can't Be Right.

Rating: Null/10 (22 June 2004)

Disaster epic that reminds you of films that became box office smashes in the 1970s. "The Day After Tomorrow" is fair for the genre, but ultimately its landmark special effects, haunting score, outstanding sound and surprisingly impressive cinematography is not enough to overcome cardboard-styled characters and a screenplay that really does nothing new or innovative. Climatologist Dennis Quaid believes that problems with global warming that have been ignored over the years will become real factors in possibly killing the human race in 1,000 or possibly only 100 years. Naturally his pleas to international delegates fall on deaf ears (most notably from U.S. vice president Kenneth Welsh). Of course we all know immediately that Quaid's predictions will come true and come true very quickly. Soon a whole host of characters get involved in destruction around the world as Los Angeles experiences killer twisters, D.C. falls to heavy snowfall and chilling temperatures (in the -100s Fahrenheit) while New York literally sinks due to heavy floods and future Ice Age-type elements. Quaid's son (Jake Gyllenhall), his love interest (Emmy Rossum), their group of high school academic competition players and a whole host of others (homeless man Glenn Plummer in particular) get stuck in the city's library. The test is to stay alive by staying warm. The entire country does its best to get as far south as possible (even going so far as to invade Mexico) to overcome the natural disasters. Quaid's wife (doctor Sela Ward) gets stuck in D.C. looking after a young cancer patient, while scientist Ian Holm and others become stranded in Europe. And through it all Quaid, assistants Dash Mihok and Jay O. Sanders go against convention to save Gyllenhall and others who may potentially survive the elements in New York City. "The Day After Tomorrow" is pretty good with its tone (admittedly there are some thought-provoking and scary possibilities presented here), but the movie turns to old cliches and tiring screenplay techniques to add to its length. The human aspect is the real minus (this is of course a very huge problem) as so many good things get overshadowed by the most important aspects of the cinema being near non-existent (direction, characterization and screenplay). 2.5 out of 5 stars.