The Day After Tomorrow

A two hour special effect in search of a script, The Day After Tomorrow is Hollywood's latest attempt to convince the world that unless we clean up our act, bad things are going to happen. Very bad things. In the case of The Day After Tomorrow this means the destruction of the world, due to an inexplicable bout of global warming, which has something to do with the melting of the polar ice caps. Central to the narrative (and there's really not much of it) is Jack Hall (Quaid), a climatologist who realises that the planet is about to be savaged by storms that will result in an ice age. Of course, nobody believes him but a crusty professor (Ian Holm). Meanwhile, Hall's son, Sam (Gyllenhaal) has gone to New York, which, funnily enough, is where the storms are most likely to converge. So what's Jack to do? Go to the Big Apple and save his youngster.

Not a film even on nodding terms with reality, The Day After Tomorrow is basically an excuse to wheel out computer generated effect after effect, which charts the destruction of a host of world famous sites. As impressive as these are - a sequence where LA is ravaged by tornadoes is especially memorable - there's no sense of order or restraint to the film. Indeed, if you take away the money shots of Los Angeles and New York being hammered, there's not much left. But what about the performances? Here we hit a snag. After all, what hope does any actor have when asked to play second fiddle to a tidal wave that engulfs Manhattan? To make matters worse, the tacked on eco message feels hollow and shallow, meaning that a film which claims to be so concerned about the fate of humanity ends up showing very little of it.