Roland Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow is one of those textbook disaster flicks where every recognizable element is in full swing: determined scientist, sure of his curveball theories that no one else buys, saddled with a dysfunctional family and a clock that's quickly ticking down towards some looming cataclysm, in this case severely bat tempered weather. It's cliche after cliche, but this is one of the ones that works, and I have a theory why. These days it seems like the formula for the disaster film is pretty dead, or at least doesn't carry the same magic it did throughout the 90's and early 00's.Stuff like San Andreas, 2012, Geostorm (shudder) just feel dead on arrival, and instead we go back and revisit things like Armageddon, Independence Day, and for me, ones like this. There's a quality, a feel for time and place that got lost somewhere along the way as time passed in Hollywood, and this is one of the last few that serve as a milestone as to where that happened. The first half or so is cracking stuff, followed by a slightly underwhelming final act. Dennis Quaid is the scientist who gets all in a huff about an extreme weather front that's apparently barrelling towards the east coast, threatening to give the whole region one wet day in the park. There's an exaggerated halfwit Vice President (Kenneth Welsh) who scoffs at him, an excitable veteran professor (Bilbo Baggins) who eagerly supports him, and an estranged family right in the storm's crosshairs who he must rescue. The special effects are neat when the maelstrom slams into New York like a battering ram, pushing over buildings with walls of water and chucking hurricanes all about the place. Quaid's wife (Sela Ward) and wayward son (Jake Gyllenhaal) are of course stuck in this mess, as he races to find out what's causing it, and how to escape. The initial scenes where it arrives are big screen magic, especially when Gyllenhaal's girlfriend (Emmy Rossum) is chased down main street by a raging typhoon and barely scapes into a building, a breathless showcase moment for the film. The second half where the storm levels off isn't as engaging, despite attempts to throw in extra excitement, such as wolves, which I still can't quite figure out the origin of, despite watching the film a few times now. Holed up inside a library, it's a long waiting game in the cold dark where the writing and character development is spread a bit thin for the time they have to kill, but what can you expect here. Should have thrown in a T Tex or some ice dragons to distract us from sparse scripting. Still, the film gets that initial buildup deliciously right, the nervous windup to all out chaos, the editing between different characters and where they are when the monsoon shows up, and enough panicky surviving to make us thankful for that cozy couch and home theatre system all the more. One of the last of the finest, in terms the genre.

Not only does 2004 disaster film The Day After Tomorrow feature big names such as Jake Gyllenhall and Emmy Rossum, but dramatic scenes of hail, tornadoes, and tsunamis. And as entertaining as all of this may be, there are many aspects of the film that are not based in scientific fact at all. For example, the Ideal Gas law is completely ignored in the scene where it is argued that the frigid air descending on the people of Earth and freezing everything in its path was "moving too fast" to heat as it made its descent. This is not plausible, because the speed of the air would never make a difference in the temperature of the air, only pressure would. In real life, the air would warm as it descended. The movie also got several aspects of the storm wrong. For instance, the movie depicts several thunder storms merging together to create one huge blizzard with an eye at the center. This would be considered a hurricane, but hurricanes can only form over warm ocean water. A hurricane would also never be able to create a blizzard, as the temperature would never be able to drop low enough. The storm is also shown rotating both clockwise and counterclockwise in different scenes. However, due to the Coriolis effect all large storms in the Northern Hemisphere rotate counter-clockwise. The many improbable scenes add up to create a story that may be fun to watch, but it is truly science fiction.

This film follows the paleoclimatologist, Jack Hall (Dennis Quad), and couple of his colleagues in Antarctica. The disaster begins when Larsen Ice Shelf breaks as they are collecting data. He presents this phenomenon to the United Nations, and blames it on the increasing climate change the planet is experiencing, but no one takes him or the potential threats that could unfold after this seriously. However, his claims are backed by Professor Terry in Scotland who has picked up data from buoys in the Atlantic Ocean that show a massive drop in ocean temperature due to the polar ice caps melting, which disrupts the North Atlantic current. This dramatic shift in ocean temperature as well as salinity causes violent and bizarre weather patterns around the world such as Japan having a massive hailstorm, India with snow, and LA experiencing a series of tornadoes. This all builds up to three massive storm systems spanning across the northern hemisphere. The eyes of these storms hold temperatures close to -150°F, which instantly freezes anything— including jet fuel in this movie. These storms affect the entirety of their given continents within days and are projected to last between 7-10 days. An evacuation is ordered of the southern United States, with most of its refugees headed to Mexico, while the northern half is instructed to seek shelter until the storm passes The rest of the movie follows Jack as he seeks to reunite with his son who has found refuge in the New York Public Library.Although it is believable climate change has a dramatic effect on the planet, the effects would not be experienced within a matter of days. If anything, it would take years to see the impacts depicted in the movie. In this film, we see the ice caps melting and sea level rising at a rapid rate, which is the cause for all the weather anomalies. Many countries experienced weather patterns that were outside their typical climatic norms (Japan with hail, India in snow, and LA with tornadoes), which is also hard to believe. If anything, regions would experience more intensified and severe versions of the weather patterns they already are subjected to. Another aspect of the film that raises questions is the extreme cold associated with the storms. In order for temperature to decrease at such a rapid rate that causes jet fuel to freeze, it would also need to occur over a matter of years, not days let alone seconds. This indicates how the time-scale of the events that occur in the movie are catalyzed and magnified by Hollywood and the resulting weather anomalies are just inaccurate.

Roland Emmerich has never been really given much credit for making films, but this film is pretty good. The special effects are decent to great, and the story line is very good. Many people have written bad reviews about this film, and up to this day, I don't know why. Global warming is a real problem, and an ICE AGE is a possibility. We at the Walters Judson Group don't like too many films after the year 2000, but we have this film highly rated. This film has human interaction, well defined characters, a problem with global warming (and its consequences), and the acting is pretty good. We give it a "9". Also, some people believe that this is "science fiction" - it is not. Anything is possible this day and age. Daniel Tyler.