The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Dennis Quaid plays a climatologist who has proof that the world will enter a new ice age in the distant future.  Everyone believes that his theory is ridiculous, until it starts to happen.  

Quaid's theory was off.  This new ice age is beginning now.  Tornadoes are destroying Los Angeles and the ocean is overflowing, bringing chaos to New York.  After the flooding of New York, a freeze begins that will leave little to no survivors.  Quaid's son, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, is stuck in New York.  He is with a few of his friends and they decide to stay in the New York Public Library.  Quaid tells his son to remain there and do not leave the building.  Quaid then embarks on a journey from Washington D.C. to New York to save the lives of his son and friends.

I love disaster movies.  There is nothing more thrilling than watching famous landmarks being destroyed by water, fire, or any other natural event.  With that being said, you would think that I would love "The Day After Tomorrow".  Well, you would be wrong.  There were only two destruction scenes and those were good.   The effects were OK and it was fun to watch.  But two scenes is not enough to make a good disaster movie.  The rest of the film was just about people waiting out the storm and watching Quaid make his way to New York.  It was really boring.

The acting was just OK in this film.  It was nothing special.  I mean Quaid, Gyllenhaal, and Emmy Rossum are all good actors, but this movie just does not let them show their talent.

"The Day After Tomorrow" is directed by Roland Emmerich.  Emmerich made "Independence Day" and I like that film.  It has good character buildup and great action sequences.  "The Day After Tomorrow" just sort of seems like a quick little picture that he made to please his fans.  I would put it on the same level as a made for TV movie.  

There was a scene at the end of the film that I really did not like.  Because the ocean has flooded into New York City, a huge ship made its way all the way to the library.  The group decides to board the ship to look for supplies.  At this time, they are attacked by computer generated wolves that escaped from the zoo earlier in the film.  The animated wolves weren't terrible, but they were not very convincing either.  This was really the last action scene in the film, and it is a real let down.  Compared to the two action scenes earlier in the film, this one was just plain boring.

"The Day After Tomorrow" is slow and not very exciting.  It just seemed to go on and on.  It is fun to watch those two scenes I mentioned, but besides that, it was a waste of my time.

C-