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The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

DVD Cover (Twentieth Century Fox)
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Overall Rating 60%
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Ranked #340
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As Paleoclimatologist Jack Hall is in Antarctica, he discovers that a huge ice sheet has sheared off. But what he does not know is that this event will trigger a massive climate shift that will affect the world population. Meanwhile, his son Sam is with friends in New York City to attend an event. There, they discover that it has been raining non-stop for the past three days, and after a series of weather-related disasters begin to occur all over the world, everybody realizes the world is about to enter a new Ice Age and the world population begins trying to evacuate to the warmer climates of the south. Jack makes a daring attempt to rescue his son and his friends who are stuck in New York City and who have managed to survive not only a massive wave but also freezing cold temperatures that could possibly kill them. --IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: June 18, 2004
Jack is a paleoclimatologist working for the government, which means he does all sorts of research and studies on weather patterns and such. Whilst working up in Antarctica, he watches a chunk of ice the size of Rhode Island break free from the main formation, due to the Greenhouse Effect. Jack tries to warn people, but of course, nobody listens. This small (in comparison) chunk of ice ends up offsetting the entire climate of the earth, causing massive tornadoes, hurricanes, tidal waves, earthquakes, and even a devastating hailstorm.... but still, nobody seems to want to listen to ol' Jack. Meanwhile, Jack's son Sam was in New York for an academic challenge competition when allc this started, and is now trapped in a library due to the loads of ice and snow outside. Jack decides to hike across the country to rescue his boy.

This movie had every typical Hollywood cliché that you could imagine, wrapped up into one boring and predictable film. The "father who ignores his son, only to realize what he's been doing all these years, and realizes he needs to spend more time with him" story: check. Romance in the middle of a huge disaster? Covered. The person in power who ignores the warning, only to watch millions of people die as a result? Bingo. Ridiculously lame product placement? Indeed so ("we've lived for three days on M&M's!" ). The over-used "comic-relief person you'd never expect to be a help who ends up dropping some wicked knowledge that saves lives" = Got one here. Sadly, this is only a small percentage of the over-used storylines, there were countless more throughout.

Over on the storyline side of things, the trailers pretty much laid everything out for you. Man fucks with nature, things get fucked up, man pays for fucking with nature. This storyline actually could have worked out nicely, hence my viewing of the film; however, the way it's presented here is just all wrong. First off, I don't claim to be an expert on weather patterns and such, but even I can tell you that the way things happened here are just wrong. There's no way in hell that life in North America can be fine today, and all sorts of craziness going on tomorrow. Things felt too rushed throughout, and the preachiness of "save the environment" really got old by the quarter mark of the movie. The special effects were really the only selling point of this movie, but as seems to be the norm now-a-days, every scene was shown in the trailers. I kid you not, there is not one special-effect scene shown in the movie that I didn't already see in one of the two trailers that I downloaded a few weeks back. And even though the movie played out in typical Hollywood fashion, quite a few major scenes were spoiled due to the trailers giving away major plot-twists and events. Basically, the only things not covered in the trailers were the incredibly lame parts; suppose they wanted to get the movie-goers cash before releasing that information.

Over on the acting side of things, it's typical for this sort of movie. Dennis Quaid plays Jack, and does decent enough in his role when he's not hugely over-acting. Jake Gyllenhaal plays his son Sam, and does a great job of reminding me why I hated him before viewing Donnie Darko. How long can this guy get away with playing the 15-19 year old teenager? The rest of the cast wasn't much better, but these two cats are the ones who really spoiled things up in the lead roles. The last major problem with this movie was the running time. It clocks in at two hours and three minutes, when really, even with the hokey plot and lame twists, it could have been cut down to eighty minutes or so. The rest of the movie just feels like loads of fluff to pad things out a bit.

Overall, if you've seen the trailers, you've seen everything good about this movie. If not, go find said trailer and save two hundred minutes of your life. Nothing worth viewing here. 2/10.
compoundwhore #1: compoundwhore - added August 18, 2004 at 5:16am
I liked this movie. Then again I didn't watch the trailers, so I didn't know much of anything beforehand.
Big D #2: Big D - added August 21, 2004 at 6:24pm
Dangerous weather destroying the world...AMAZING. :)
Stary_Night_sky #3: Stary_Night_sky - added September 25, 2004 at 10:25pm
special effects are the only good thing about this movie, and the fact that it ended too. Story line is utter shit.
wikkidpiggykilla #4: wikkidpiggykilla - added December 5, 2004 at 9:06pm
Im was in the same situation as compoundwhore I no idea what to expest from this movie befor I watched it. Just happened to be at a friends when they rented it and we all watched it. The effects where great the story line while a little far fetechted wasnt shit. just not very believable. I am not really a fan of this kind of movie but I enjoyed it
mebclowd09 #5: mebclowd09 - added December 21, 2005 at 2:23am
i've watched this movie about 50 times already and it's one of those movies that i can just watch over and over and over again and NEVER get sick of. awesome!
Kari Byron's Sex Cyborg #6: Kari Byron's Sex Cyborg - added January 19, 2007 at 2:28am
. . .wolves. . .

4.7/10
Dametria #7: Dametria - added June 12, 2007 at 1:58am
Meh.....It was OK I suppose. It was just so....predictable. Watch the first 10 minutes and tell me whats going to happen and who you think is going to survive. Yeah, thats right. FX are good and I LOVE disaster films but nothing amazing happens here.
Bliss From A Dead Embrace #8: Bliss From A Dead Embrace - added January 30, 2009 at 2:22am
I liked it. Wasn't anything special but it wasn't a waste of time. 7/10
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