The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
Once you've begun to mature as a movie watcher, you start to value substance over style. Sure, a movie may look like a billion dollars, but in the end, does it really matter? Those are questions you have to ask yourself pretty much whenever you're picking out a movie to watch. Art house indie fare or box office blockbuster? Character or physique?
The good news is that when you watch a disaster movie like this one, you pretty much know the formula. The '90s were the decade for disaster movies, as far as I know, because nothing entertains us as people more the destruction of all that we know & hold dear. Sex & violence, there's the dollar bills y'all. All the characters are there, & you'll know them when you meet them.
You'll drift through the pointless little missions some characters have to go on, just waiting to sink your teeth into the next scene involving some worldly wonder being destroyed or frozen. You'll endure a few minutes of eye-rollingly bad dialogue just to see that American flag waving in the air at some point (& then it freezes too).
The inherent problem with disaster movies is that for most audiences they can't comprehend conflict without an enemy. When the world's weather systems turn on you, who do you blow up? Sorry Planet Earth, but there's no beating Mother Nature, she'll always have your number.
I think that some of the actors involved in this movie would call this one of their paycheque movies. Jake Gyllenhaal is alright as the son of a famous climatologist (Dennis Quaid), with the son being stuck in New York City & the dad vowing to rescue him. I mentioned eye-rolling earlier didn't I? Yeah, the scene where Gyllenhaal calls his dad on the phone, braving a flooded library to make the call is pretty wince-inducing. Quaid busts out the "Do you understand me?" line twice in less than a minute, in reference to making a promise to his son & wife to rescue the boy. Not really Quaid's fault, but still, you cringe. & oh yeah, as a scientist Quaid makes a good football player.
I'll save the best for the last, & that's obviously the special effects. Say what you will about the other aspects of the movie, the plotholes, the illogicalness (evacuating all of the Southern States to Mexico?!?!) of most of the decisions the world makes. The special effects are unfuckingbelievable, particularily the destruction of Los Angeles (yay!) by multiple tornadoes.
Like I said, formula, formula, formula. You know what characters exist only to die, you know who's going to be alive in the end. You know who's going to learn from this disaster, you know it's going to be preachy in the end. I knew what I was getting into, & my opinion hasn't changed that much. Not the worst disaster movie (that would be Armageddon) ever made, & there were parts that had me on the edge of my futon. Those were of course non-speaking parts. They might as well make disaster movies foreign, with optional subtitles, 'cause the dialogue ain't what's driving this movie. A solid frozen Earth 3 outta 5 for this one.
& oh yeah, I'm from Calgary. Most of that weather looked like early January to me, which is horrifying enough that it didn't faze me.
Roger Ebert's review of The Day After Tomorrow (2004)