Great, realistic and one of the best movies of 2004

Rating: 7/10 (18 February 2006)

I had high expectations 2 years ago when the trailers of the movies which were a lot and looked really promising and scary. I have always considered Emmerich as an average director who is given high budget projects and he directs them in not a bad way, but people can't see what he is good at and that's why he remains an average director. Kinda Michael Bay probably. High budget, amazing special effects, entertaining, kinda optimistic and so on. This is the reason movies like Independence Day and Godzilla are rated low and are examples of bad movies although I like both of them a lot.
Now about The Day After Tomorrow - I consider it as Emmerich's best movie. It's nicely directed, it's realistic and authentic which makes it scary it some ways and a little distant from the other light summer blockbusters and 2004 had many, many summer blockbusters.
The special effects were incredible which is not that much of a surprise since many people talk about how The Day After Tomorrow depends on these action/destruction special effects scene. Nah, I don't think so, but I love special effects and this time they are special and make the movie realistic. I don't remember which guy from the crew said that, but it sounded very true:"If we hadn't hurry finish the movie, we would have been making a documentary". The end of the world topic is nicely stressed although we finally have some personal views for the nightmare.
The soundtrack is great and I loved some themes, especially the one from the documentary of the movie. It's a sad theme about how many people die due to the the beginning of another glacial age.
The acting is OK for such a movie. The story is not that personal, but considering that in Independence Day, the president was one of the characters, it is personal indeed. A father and son drama and characters not related with our main characters who personally I cared for, like the sick kid and the female doctor.
Overall The Day After Tomorrow is a great movie and although 2004 wasn't that much of a great movie year, it was something I would watch again, something that entertained me, something that amazed me at that period and it used to be a very favorite movie of mine 20 months ago, but I watched many, many classics since then and I changed my opinion. It was a good period and I will always remember some of my very first favorite movies even if they are not included in my top 10 of all time anymore. Just a good memory. And I wish Emmerich luck with his new project which promises to be something the fans would like to see and if they like it, they will start having respect for Emmerich which is going to be a progress in his career although his career has never been and it will never be something special.