Okay, "The Day After Tommorow" is a film by Roland Emmerich, and it's...it's...g-g-g...ggood...Wow. Who would have thought, real quality from the man behind "Independence Day" and "Godzilla." Of course, the film is far from perfect, but so much of it is fun and exciting, that I can almost disregard such things as acting, and story...after all, it's summer! Who needs those!

The story of "The Day After Tomorrow" is one that many liberals have been using as a case to condemn conservatives. I will not mention this again, because the story is so corny, it's only embarrassing to our friends on the Left. The story is this: there has been so much global warming, that the polar ice caps are melting, causing ocean temperatures to drop, causing huge storms, causing...a new Ice Age? Whatever. No one listens to climatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) when he warns them of upcoming disaster. Then, in typical Roland Emmerich fashion, havoc breaks loose, and major cities are destroyed, courtesy of visual effects.

As corny as the story is, and as bizarre and unconvincing as the "fake science" is, I found myself in great awe of many of the film's aspects. First off: the visual effects are simply astounding. If the effects guys don't have Oscars next year, then something is horribly wrong. Massive tornadoes rip through Los Angeles, gigantic tidal waves flood Manhattan, and then the giant freezing comes, and the entire northern hemisphere becomes an icy tomb. I never doubted that everything was real. It's completely convincing. Since I am terrified of weather as it is (tornadoes scare the hell out of me), I was truly frightened by many of these scenes.

Visual effects aside, the film is corny, and filled with flat characters. Quaid sleepwalks through his role, and the talented Jake Gyllenhaal deserves more dimensions. I still found myself liking the characters because they maintain and "everyman" feel, but I could never relate to them. They also do increasingly stupid things, as all Roland Emmerich characters do. The direction is by no means good, and the writing (co-written by Emmerich) is standard, Hollywood stuff.

What then, makes "The Day After Tomorrow" so gripping besides visual effects? It's hard to explain through print, but I'll try. Roland Emmerich is a mediocre director and a a sub-par writer, always has, and probably always will. But while he will never mature as a writer/director, he has already matured as a filmmaker. I compare him to Michael Crichton. Crichton isn't a very good writer, but he can tell a damn good story.

In a nutshell, it's all just a disaster movie in the first half, and a survival film in the second half, but it's one of the best of it's kind. It also tries to express a theme. A theme about the environment and how we must protect it. A theme about-

Ahh, never mind. "The Day After Tomorrow" is as much about global warming as "Independence Day" was about politics.

© Written by Jacob Hall

How We Rated This Film TC Candler - C Richard Propes - D+ Jacob Hall - B

TC Candler's Comment

Too heavy handed with its message.  Too insanely implausible to be taken seriously.  Some of the effects were very effective.  Some of the performances are worthy of note (Gyllenhaal and Rossum).  But in general, this film failed to win me over.

Richard Propes' Comment

Have you ever watched a film where at the end you found yourself just sitting there watching the screen thinking to yourself "Wow, I did not like that film at all?" "The Day After Tomorrow" is such a film for me.

Perhaps this is a film that begged to be seen on the big screen, however, since they chose to release it on DVD I will have to review it from the "small screen" angle. I found the film to be filled with horrid dialogue, an idiotic and unsatisfying plot, wooden performances and dazzling but amazingly fake looking special effects.

I rate this film a D+, because these are, in fact, amazing special effects...I just don't think they were effectively used. There are some amazing production values here, but most is fairly laughable from the set design, to the atmospheric qualities to the costuming.

Basically, this Emmerich took a bunch of amazing special effects and still managed to make a crappy film that bored the heck out of me. Wow.