The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Jack Hall	Dennis Quaid	½
Sam Hall	Jake Gyllenhaal
Laura Chapman	Emmy Rossum	½
Jason Evans	Dash Mihok
Dr. Lucy Hall	Sela Ward
J.D.	Austin Nichols
Brian Parks	Arjay Smith	½
Terry Rapson	Ian Holm
Vice President Becker	Kenneth Welsh

Review

The premise of the good-old fashioned disaster movie is a hypothesis, and what largely decides its level of interest is the potential of this hypothesis and how it is presented. That is not to say that its probability has been discussed. Of the science on which a film like this is based I cannot say much (and not even experts agree). So if a filmmaker wants to go with a worst-case scenario in order to make a film, then alright with me.

Roland Emmerich is a director who likes his works to be loud and flashy and who doesn't mind a bit of melodrama. His most renowned film, Independence Day, was over-dimensioned and more or less shot its own mouth off. His newest outing, The Day After Tomorrow has many of the same qualities but largely stays away from the ridiculously pompous statements. It is closer in spirit to the classic disaster movies of the 1970s, but the scale of the disaster here is of course a quite different one. There is little doubt that in presenting the whole thing, Emmerich is way too ambitious. And his focal points are at times (as with Independence Day) strange, to say the least. The film values human life more unequally than most tyrannies throughout history, and most characters make choices that are so far off from realism that it makes them look less authentic than the forces of nature presented. Even so, Emmerich directs his action sequences brilliantly and makes it all quite suspenseful. The images are breathtaking. Never mind the kid with cancer or the ridiculous wolf-attack.