The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

I won't say anything about the environmental message, but it is fun to watch

While I consider myself reasonably environmentally friendly, I never did pay much attention to all the political hulabaloo that surrounded this film. In fact, I never even bothered to see it until it came to DVD.

And I will happily say that this is a movie worth keeping around, assuming you are one of those people that love a good fluffy adventure every now and then. I know I do, and the wild special effects and insane plot twists are enough to keep me happy. Warning or not, it's fun, fairly mindless entertainment that just looks freaking cool. September 27, 2008

global dumbing

Ronald Emmerich makes the kind of movies it would be better if we had a lot less of. INDEPENDENCE DAY, GODZILLA, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW....Robert Emmerich = dumb, big, loud, silly entertainment for the masses during summer time. I wish Hollywood would get a little more ballsy and start moving away from their tired mega-budget summer blockbuster strategy and invest just a little more capital in different projects. They would learn there is money in making better movies. ANYWAY, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW is absurd and unless Americans are as dumb as apparently talk radio hosts seem to think their listeners are, this film does not work very well as propaganda for environmentalists. Actually to the extent environmental activists are linked to wacky movies like this they are regarded as extremists and crazy by much of the public. Well that's my take. Right-wing radio would go outta business if they didn't have Hollywood to demonize and whine about all day long like victimized babies. Anyway, "liberal" Hollywood is mostly about money, not ideas --whether the ideas be artistic, scientific, or even political and that's clear enough with THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. But I digress: THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW sucks because it takes itself too seriously. If it were somehow done with a wink and a nod we could be in on the joke but it's not. An absurd disaster popcorn flick might could work well if it recognized it's own utter preposterousness. This one is done as they all too often are with the pretense that this scenerio could realistically happen in the real world but obviously that's nonsense and we're supposed to what? Suspend disbelief? But I don't want to. We're not supposed to laugh at it and not supposed to take it too seriously, obviously. We are to enjoy the "eye candy" and dim plot and dialogue but I'm not going to just enjoy CGI storms and buildings falling apart because I've seen it before and I sure have experienced enough mediocre story telling in my day.

"Emmerich obviously doesn't care if the science is flimsy, so why should you? --Jeff Shannon"

Gee, I don't know really. "It's just a movie" and so whatever.
September 25, 2008

Movie: 3.75/5 Picture Quality: 3.5~4.75/5 Sound Quality: 4.75/5 Extras: 1.25/5

Version: U.S.A / Region A
MPEG-4 AVC BD-50
Running time: 2:03:40 (h:m:s)
Movie size: 31,200,743,424 bytes
Disc size: 37,662,578,573 bytes
Average Video Bit Rate: 26.07 Mbps
DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 24-bit
French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround 640kbps
Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround 640kbps
Subtitles: English SDH / French / Spanish / Cantonese

#Audio Commentaries
#Deleted Scenes
#Interactive Game
#Subtitle Trivia Track August 26, 2008

General Review

Product was in excellent shape and arrived in a timely fashion. Thank you thank you thank you ***** July 14, 2008

The "Independence Day" of climate change, fantasy not science fiction!

Science fiction involves speculation or rational extrapolation based on current science or technology, so scientific rules have to be obeyed up to certain degree. Then, there is no choice but to classify The Day After Tomorrow as fantasy, because the science was so exaggerated and full of factual mistakes that not even the man-made global warming tribe was willing to defend it. Famous environmentalist George Monbiot called it "a great movie and lousy science." Realclimate.org compared it with State of Fear for addressing "real scientific issues and controversies, but is similarly selective (and occasionally mistaken) about the basic science."

The only positive comment has to do with the special effects, they are as good as their sister movies Independence Day (Single Disc Widescreen Edition) and Godzilla, from the same film Director. Besides from SFX buffs and disaster movie fans, the only others who could really enjoy this movie is the small band of radicals, who in the name of a number of good causes, covertly advocate for industrialization, capitalism and globalization to end as the only means to save our planet. And this film makes their dream come truth, as the modern Ice Age forces most of the citizens from developed countries who survive to march as refugees to the Third World in exchange for their foreign debt. The Independence Day of climate change!

However, to be fair, it has to be noticed that The Day After Tomorrow was a big hit in the box office, so, unquestionably most moviegoers really love the combination of fantasy, good SFX, action, and disaster movies! This also explains the paradox of why so many Amazon reviewers agree on the exaggerations of the movie, but some rated it as five stars while others just one. July 12, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...