A (guilty) pleasure to watch

Rating: 7/10 (10 July 2004)

I shouldn't like this movie. It has a premise based on something completely unscientific, it relies too much on cliche action sequences, and the story itself is not that strong. Yet I still couldn't help but like The Day After Tomorrow.
I personally am not a huge fan of natural disaster flicks. As of right now the asteroid movie Deep Impact is my favourite of the genre, but The Day After Tomorrow is firmly in second. Like pretty much all of Roland Emmerich's movies, the number one reason to go see this movie is for the special effects. The first half of the movie is filled with fantastic scenes of destruction, such as massive tidal waves, blinding snow storms, and seeing all of North America and its major cities encased in ice. It is quite simply a smorgasbord of sweetness for the eyes, and it had me on the edge of my seat...until the second half hit.
The second half of the movie is much slower than the first half, and focuses on climatologist Jack Hall's (played by Dennis Quaid) efforts to rescue his son Sam Hall (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), who's trapped in New York City. The acting is on the whole not bad, with Jake Gyllenhaal being the stand out in the movie. It's interesting to see how everybody in the movie acted when confronted with a life or death situation. But, personally I wanted to see more scenes of destruction in the second half, and I can't help but feel a little gypped when they pretty much stopped.
Overall, The Day After Tomorrow is first and foremost a disaster pic, and if you come to movie looking for nothing beyond some great eye candy, you probably won't be disappointed. Just don't go expecting too much more than that though.
I give this movie 7/10.