Today’s quick review: The Day After Tomorrow. Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), an obstreperous climatologist, has his worst fears realized when the effects of global warming cause a sudden shift in the North Atlantic Current, triggering a series of tidal waves, blizzards, and tornadoes worldwide. As the United States government tries to cope with the emergency, Jack braves the weather to reach New York and rescue his teenage son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal).
The Day After Tomorrow is a science fiction disaster thriller about global warming run amok. Dennis Quaid stars as Jack Hall, a scientist whose warnings go unheeded until it is too late. The Day After Tomorrow features spectacle on a massive scale as the world’s cities are battered by storms and flooding. But the movie makes missteps with its characters and story, making it a hit-or-miss film that has a hard time getting traction.
The Day After Tomorrow suffers from two main problems: a dearth of likable characters, and a conflicted premise. Jack Hall is supposed to carry the movie, but his character falls short. His warnings are meant to be prophetic, but his overly abrasive personality makes it easier to side with his critics. The other characters do not fare much better, with only Sam showing the resourcefulness and strength of character to feel worthwhile.
The other major issue is that The Day After Tomorrow gets caught between science and fiction. The movie attempts to dramatize a real-world issue by increasing the stakes and accelerating the timeline to fit within a disaster framework. But by doing so, it undermines its own foundations. The exaggerations make its theoretical foundation less credible, while the connection to the real world hamstrings the audience’s suspension of disbelief.
For all of its narrative faults, The Day After Tomorrow is still technically sound. The scenes that are meant to be dramatic are dramatic, the weather phenomena are suitably intense, and the challenge of survival gives the characters enough to keep them busy. Ultimately, how much you get out of the movie will come down to how much you are willing to invest in its premise. Approach with caution.
For a more comfortably fictitious disaster movie about a global weather catastrophe, check out Geostorm. For a more modestly scoped disaster movie about massive storms, try Twister. For dystopian science fiction that explores similar political themes in a different way, try Snowpiercer. For a different flavor of disaster movie that lionizes scientists, try Contagion. For a zombie movie set in the ruins of New York, check out I Am Legend.
[6.4 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/). I give it a 6.0 for decent execution marred by questionable narrative choices.