The Day After Tomorrow : The World vs. Mother Nature
by - Written: May 29 '04 (Updated May 29 '04)
Product Rating:
Pros: Special Effects, acting, good story
Cons: none that I can think of
The Bottom Line: The Day After tomorrow is a great film about what Greenhouse gases could eventually do to our Ecosystem. Well done, and good story to go with great special effects.
Where will you be the day after tomorrow? I sure know where I will be, sipping a drink on the beaches of Cancun. Enjoying the weather, and not worrying about being frozen where I stand. But, maybe I should be happy, because one of these disaster movies has actually decided to take out the state where I live for the first time: Washington.
The Day After Tomorrow is an end-of-the-world scenario film in which a scientist figures out that because of the ever-increasing amounts of Greenhouse Gases, our North Atlantic current will be thrown off. For years it has been the reason that warm air was thrown up an across the Atlantic Ocean, but with changes to the Northern Ice-caps, he fears that it will change the current. Any change in the current could drop temperatures worldwide, and throw is into a sort-of ice age that could kill half the planet.
As with just about every other movie that involves natural disasters and the sort, our main character scientist, played by Dennis Quaid, has his pleas ignored, and he is seen as a crazy scientist. Again as with all of these movies, his theories seem so absurd that just about nobody will believe that there is a chance of them happening. Finally, same with the other films, it turns out that he is correct, and the Government ends up crawling on their hands and knees to get him to help them out of the situation.
That is one of the formulas that is prevalent in all of the natural disaster movies, and comes off quite well in this film. Dennis Quaid is able to be that scientist, and is also able to lend some credibility to his role, but not doing anything out of the ordinary, but instead sticking to the science, and making sure that he can back up all of claims with hard science. Quaid also can play the character that is not quite on an even keel with his surroundings, but cares enough about his job not to be in it for the money, but rather for the Science. His character has sacrificed most of his sons childhood to go on scientific missions to far away places like Greenland, and has missed out on a lot of his growing up. This later becomes a main theme of the movie as Quaid (Jack Hall in the movie) seeks to reconnect with the son he barely knows.
His son, Sam Hall, is played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who up to this point has only been used in a supporting role for Hollywood movies. In this movie, though, he takes center stage as one of the two main characters. Sam is a boy-genius, who is able to do calculus equations in his head, and during the first part of the movie, he is in New York City participating in a scholastic competition with 2 friends, against teams from around the country. It is in New York where is part of this story takes place. In a somewhat smaller role, Jack’s wife is played by Sela Ward, who is a doctor taking care of a sick patient that cant be moved.
After a short amount of character development, the storm hits the planet, and at first Jack’s theories are still dismissed as not being credible. But, as more and more things start to happen that he is able to predict, the powers that be start to realize that they should have been listening to him from the start. From that point on, Jack stays at the center of the story as the only person that can save the United States population from being totally annihilated.
This film, brings a new method of special effects to the realm of filmmaking. Using thousands of still shots make on computers, they are able to show the destruction of two major cities as it takes place. First, San Francisco is hit by a series of tornados, and second, New York is hit by a tidal wave, and ensuing flooding as the ocean off the coast begins to rise. In both instances the special effects were very well done, and I was on the edge of my seat just waiting to see what would come next. And they don’t just fall into the same trap of every other disaster movie, where the main premise has been to destroy as many building as possible. Instead they try to do original scenes that make the viewer pay close attention, and hope that the destruction does not engulf the whole population.
The special effects are what help to drive this movie, and the story becomes somewhat secondary as they are taking place, but there is a lot more to the movie than just San Francisco and New York. Some innovative filmmaking is done in a few scenes where the space station is looking down on the storm as it begins and peaks on planet Earth. Also, the story does not end with a lot of the lose threads that happen in many disaster movies. Instead, we are left with a conclusion to each of the character driven tangents, and then allowed to think for ourselves how everything else in the film will turn out after the ending credits. I like films that allow me to think for myself rather than saying exactly what will happen, and telling me exactly how it will take place.
This is one of those movies that you have to see at least once, so that you can enjoy the special effects for what they are, and how they could change a lot of filmmaking from here on out. There was no point where I thought to myself that this is all computer animation, or that the film was done on a set. Instead, I was able to sit back and let it unfold in front of me, instead of thinking to myself the whole time that it was just a movie. That is one of the things that can make or break a movie for me, and I am glad to say that in this case, it made the movie for me. While there is a lot of alluded death in the film, there is no gore, and no up-front blood or destruction of the people in the story. This could be somewhat disappointing for people who want it as realistic as possible, but I think that it makes this film watchable by an entire family this way. I highly recommend that you give this film a chance, and enjoy it for what it is. Enjoy it as a film about disaster, and not as a life-changing event.
With THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW director Roland Emmerich INDEPENDENCE DAY GODZILLA trades evil aliens and radioactive lizards in for some seriously bad we...More at Family Video
PriceTool.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources,
so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
