From the director of Independence Day comes another low plot, low intelligence, high special effects movie.

Rating: 8/10 (23 April 2005)

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Jake Gylenhall Roland Emerich directed a few movies that I like. Independence Day, Stargate, and now The Day After Tomorrow. These movies tend to be lower on plot and higher on special effects, but they are still fun to watch. We do, after all, need popcorn movies sometimes.
And this movie is definitely a turn off your brain and enjoy the ride kind of movie. If nothing else, you need to watch it just for the special effects. They are that cool.
The plot is really quite simple. We've all heard climatologists and meteorologists and experts whining and complaining that at the rate we're burning fossil fuels, we're going to screw up our planet beyond all repair, right? According to this movie, we only have a few short years before that happens. At least that's the estimate Jack Hall (Quaid) comes up with. Then weird things start happening and he finds out his original estimate was a little bit long.
What he meant was a few weeks.
Hail the size of cabbages start to pummel foreign countries. Tidal waves flood New York. Tornados devastate Los Angelos. In a very short amount of time, a new of time, a new ice age is ushered in.
And this ain't just some nasty Saskatchewan snow storm. Temperatures drop so low that stuff freezes faster than you can "Bob's yer uncle." Jack's son, Sam (Gylenhall) is stranded in New York with some of his friends. Jack contacts Sam with strict instructions not to leave the library he is shacked up in, because the storm is getting much worse. Just because he can walk around outside without freezing to death right now doesn't mean it'll stay like that.
It's a Hollywood movie, so we already know the ending before it gets there. But this ain't a movie that we watch to have our brains strained, so does it really matter? Bottom Line: 3 out of 4 (watch it if you're bored)