The Day After Tomorrow became a piece of propaganda for many environmentalists, but it also became a lightning rod for critics who pointed out that describing the movie's science is beyond implausible, it's impossible. I wouldn't let that get in your way of enjoyment any more than the science behind Godzilla. Ok, bad example.
Then there's the remarkable resemblance between the Vice President in this movie and VP Dick Cheney. Not to mention the President in this flick is the total opposite of the ID4 President; he's a complete moron who asks his Veep what he thinks should be done. Republicans and Democrats alike howled, but for different reasons.
I say, why are you getting all worked up? This is Roland Emmerich, after all. I stopped taking him seriously after Stargate, which is still the best thing he has ever done (although The Patriot was good, too).
You have hand it to him, Emmerich is a good environmentalist. He recycled practically all of Independence Day to make The Day After Tomorrow. We have the one brilliant person in the whole world who figures out the impending disaster, the estranged couple that need to be reunited and the two people separated in the disaster and attempting to reunite.
For once, it's not Jeff Goldblum. In this case, Dennis Quaid carries all three loads. As Jack Hall, he's a paleoclimatologist who warns of massive environmental disaster from global warning, to scoffs from the Vice President. Then, in an age-old formula, the disasters begin to pile up. Hailstones the size of softballs assault Tokyo. A hurricane hits Ireland.
Then Los Angeles is utterly trashed by tornadoes, which is a new one. It's always fun to see Hollywood's newest ideas for destroying this town, and watching a TV reporter get splattered with an Angelyne billboard was a perfect inside joke. Guess Dennis Woodruff wasn't available.
With the climate collapsing faster than Britney Spears' public image, Jack is fretting over his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), who has gone to New York for an academic competition. Sam isn't worried about the incessant rain so much as he is with making time with his hottie teammate Laura Chapman (Emmy Rossum).
Then, the levee breaks. Three massive snowstorms taking the shape of a hurricane effectively cover the northern hemisphere of the planet. Manhattan, which has been flooded up to around the eighth floor, now freezes solid. In an amusing twist of irony, Americans now pour over the Mexican border, fleeing the cold.
With half of America under ice (and not a single sympathetic word for our neighbors in Canada), the President orders an evacuation of all survivors to the south. Jack, the one person who knows what's going on, leaves D.C. and drives, then hikes in the snow to get his son. Sam is now snowed in at the New York Library, which leads to some great jokes about book burning as they try to stay warm.
The real heart of the movie takes place not in the U.S., but Scotland, as Dr. Terry Rapson (Ian Holm) and his associates, trapped in their remote weather monitoring office, wait for their inevitable doom with typical British stiff upper lip. When it was all over, I found myself caring more for these three than anyone else in the movie.
The rest of the time, the movie is so caught up in scientific impossibilities and stunning visuals it forgets to be a story. You will find yourself saying 'Wow' a few times, but it's much harder to buy into Jack walking from Philadelphia to New York in arctic conditions.
In the end, the movie is all pretty pictures (except for the CG wolves, which are even lamer than the leopards in Hidalgo) and no soul. Sorta like most of Hollywood these days. Cook up some popcorn and put your brain on the shelf and you'll enjoy this one.
Score: 6 out of 10
The Video
Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, The Day After Tomorrow looks very nice. You really have to look for flaws to have a complaint with it, but that's due in large part to the heavy, heavy use of CG. There's just a tiny hint of noise in the video, but by and large, it's a clean print with excellent color levels.
It's most evident in faces and clothing, since everything else is CG. Gyllenhaal is suitably pasty while Quaid is ruddy and wind burned after trudging through the snow. The heavy snowfall is solid white, free of blooming or noise.
Fox is always good about their transfers and this DVD is no exception. Despite scenes of swirling snow, blowing rain, tornados and whatnot, we get good detail without ghosting or blurring.
Score: 9 out of 10
Languages and Audio
The Day After Tomorrow sports English DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks as well as French and Spanish two-channel audio, with subtitles in English and Spanish.
Despite even a DTS soundtrack, the mayhem tends to be biased toward the front channels. You can hear it when those tornadoes tear Los Angeles to shreds or the tsunami floods New York. Yes, there is action in the surrounds, but not as immersive as you'd expect. After the sonic brilliance of Master & Commander, I can't help but be disappointed.
That said, it's still and outstanding mix. Voices come through clearly regardless of the action, and the score by Harald Klosser is powerful without being overly dominant. Sound effects are decent but a little weaker on the low-end of the scale than I'd have thought. The subwoofer didn't get as much play as I'd expected. Overall, it's good but not as aggressive as you'd expect from a movie like this.
Score: 8 out of 10
Packaging and Extras
The Day After Tomorrow comes in an Amaray case, with a holographic slipcase cover. There is no insert.
First up among the extras is a pair of commentary tracks. The first features writer/director Roland Emmerich and producer Mark Gordon. The movie may be PG-13 but Gordon's mouth is R-rated, almost from the get-go. He's also hyper, to the point of being rude, interrupting and cutting Emmerich off constantly. They discuss the full breadth of the movie, from CG to the actors to the writing.
They fess up and admit that yeah, the President and Vice President in this movie were modeled after Bush/Cheney, and they aren't the least bit apologetic about it, either. Contrary to what some of you may think, I have a bigger bone of contention with the movie than that.
The second commentary features co-writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff, director of photography Ulei Steiger, editor David Brenner and production designer Barry Chusid. This is much more of a technical talk, pointing out what is CG and what's a sound stage (frozen New York was all sound stage, which is impressive).
There are two deleted scenes, which is kind of a rip off since there was talk of so much more in the commentary tracks. Neither scene was much of a loss.
The last feature is an audio demo, featuring some British helicopters, where you can play it with all of the individual sound elements before listening to them as a final mix. Without much context or input from the sound engineers, it seems rather pointless.
Now, there was supposed to be an hour of interactive materials on the DVD-ROM. After installing the Hot Llama software and downloading all of the upgrades, it crashed. In fact, it crashed on all three of my computers. So I was never able to access the material on any system. Way to go, Hot Llama.
Score: 4 out of 10