Back Rowe Reviews
Real Time Movie Reviews from the Back Row of a Theater

The Day After Tomorrow (PG-13)

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Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Starring: Dennis Quaid
May 2004

“Farcical, But a Fun Ride”


The eighties gave us The Day After, a story about the bitter reality of a nuclear holocaust.  Now, the new millennium has delivered us a fresh breed of disaster film in The Day After Tomorrow, which brims with a variety of natural calamities and an amazing array of effects to bring them to life.

Granted, the movie is much more enjoyable when you suspend your disbelief right from the opening credits.  As unbelievable as it is to accept that global warming can cause an ice age, it's even more of a scientific fallacy to think that an ice age will expend itself after just one week.  But that's exactly what happens in Roland Emmerich's (
Stargate and Independence Day) big budget, big name flick that stars Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Here's the Reader's Digest version: Jack Hall (Quaid) is a renowned paleoclimatologist (say that ten times fast and I'll buy you a sno-cone) who predicts a coming catastrophe due to radical climate shifts.  Jack's son, Sam (Gyllenhaal), is on his way to New York City to compete in a high school academic competition.  Of course, that's when the earth goes into an epileptic fit, releasing tornadoes in Los Angeles, forming massive tidal waves in Manhattan and unleashing uber-blizzards at the poles.

The rest of the movie is about survival and the human condition in severe conditions.  Jack and his two partners strike out to rescue Sam and his classmates, who have retreated into the warmest room of the New York Public Library and have been burning books to stay warm.  Jack's vehicle breaks down just outside of Philly, and he walks the rest of the way to Manhattan over snow and ice in just a couple days (is your disbelief still suspended?).  In the end, Jack rescues his son, but the resolution is bittersweet because the northern U.S. is now an icebox.

Other than special effects, I don't see
The Day After Tomorrow winning any major awards, and there are several reasons why.  Even with shallow character development (Sela Ward and Ian Holm were tremendously underserved), a derivative plotline and shoddy science, the biggest injustice in the film is its blatant political agenda.  However extreme and speculative, the environmentalists have made their point about the side effects of mass energy usage.

The movie became a platform and to its own detriment—
The Day After Tomorrow would have been much more enjoyable without the sermon on conservationism.  And what about the other message during the reverse-immigration scene, when thousands of Americans flood into Mexico, seeking warmer environs and the ensuing politically correct speech delivered by the newly-promoted president of the U.S.?  Again, The Day After Tomorrow was a great popcorn movie, but these "preachy" moments made me choke on a kernel.  Oh, and one more thing, what business does a wild pack of wolves have roaming into a disaster picture?

Rating: 3