Cheap The Day After Tomorrow (Full Screen Edition) (DVD) (Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emmy Rossum) (Roland Emmerich) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Day After Tomorrow (Full Screen Edition)

The Day After Tomorrow- Silly, Good-Natured Fun
The Day After Tomorrow is a film you see for a dazzling array of visual effects. Directed by Roland Emmerich who made one of the biggest hits of 1996, Independence Day and one of the biggest disappoinments of 1998, Godzilla. He also made the enjoyable The Patriot in 2000. You don't see this type of movie for a story since it's so cliche, and not too mention a tad unbelievable.
The story uses the lame father-son tale, pretty much Dennis Quaid goes to try and rescue his son who is trapped in flooded New York City. SPOILER: And of the course the film has a happy ending, considering none of the major characters die. Are you buying the realism? Didn't think so. The disaster sequences are nothing short of remarkable, this film had a $125 million budget and it definitely shows. The disaster sequences while great could've been longer, they seemed to have gone by pretty quickly but this film goes by pretty fast considering it's 123 minutes. Jake Gyllenhaul, Dennis Quaid, Emmy Rossum, and Ian Holm give fine performances. Wow, weren't expecting good acting in a film like this huh?
The Day After Tomorrow is rated PG-13 for Intense Situations of Peril. The disaster sequences look incredibly realistic and believable and could scare some people. The images of the tornadoes destroying Los Angeles and the flooding of New York are intense. There's also a fake-looking, completely CG, wolf attack sequence which is used as a mindless digression. Though this film could upset some considering it targets the Bush administration in a negative way, Vice President Cheney is portrayed as arrogant and rude, which I must say did upset me. Overall this is an enjoyable film and worth seeing in theatres, just don't take it seriously in terms of the plot. If you don't catch at the theatres, definitely check it out when it hits the shelves of Blockbuster.

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The Mother of All Disaster Films
I love disaster films. Absolutely love them. So when a movie comes along that has not only tornadoes, not only tidal waves, not only the blizzard of all blizzards, but a preachy message on global warming, I'm "down with it," as they say.

Yes, the plot is cheesy, but so what? EVERY disaster movie plot is cheesy. It's part of the charm! Of course we have the earnest scientist (Dennis Quaid, looking great; age becomes him), the nonbelieving government officials (look for the Cheney lookalike playing--surprise, surprise, the Vice President of the United States), the romance thrown in for good measure--the hero scientists who risk their lives for the Greater Good--I mean, what more can you want?

The special effects are spectacular, especially the tornadoes destroying Los Angeles and the tidal wave hitting New York. As a person who does not enjoy flying at the best of times, I have to say that the turbulent airplane ride was much too real for my tastes. I found my palms sweating!

The premise of a new Ice Age is pretty scary. And maybe the stuff that happens in this film can't really happen, as our real-life scientists say. But the message on global warming might, just might, reach a few close-minded people, because if this film can't happen, something bad is sure to be in the offing, right? I just hope it's not a tidal wave over Philadelphia (where I live).

Really, this is a fun film, a great summer blockbuster, and a visual stunner. I recommend it!

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It's another disaster movie
Certainly, it is yet another disaster movie, but we film-goers have a huge appetite for disasters. The film makers will keep making them as long as we keep paying to watch them. In my opinion some reviewers have been too harsh about this one. It's not bad, as disaster movies go. There are some very good special effects that save it from being the unworthy crock some people are suggesting.

In this film, the Northern hemisphere is covered by big, rotating clouds - there are 3 of them: one for Canada/USA, one for Europe and one for Siberia. The heroes are American (of course) with a nod to a small knot of British climatologists (or meteorologists) shivering over their tea and biscuits in Scotland. The warnings about possible climate change, brought about by human activities such as burning fossil fuels and hacking and burning forests, had been largely ignored by those in the strongest position to do something about it. And now it's too late. The switch to colder global temperatures has been flipped. The genii is out of the bottle and cannot be put back. The course of events is inexorable. The polar ice begins to melt at an alarming rate. The Atlantic conveyor (the ocean current that carries warm water to the cold regions where it gets all cold and salty so that it sinks and flows back to the warmer regions) is altered when a critical desalination point is reached. Climate stability is lost. There are huge storms - unseasonable and in unexpected places. Great flocks of birds fill the sky over New York - a portent of doom - flying south. A huge dome of ocean crashes over Manhattan. Those who survive the drowning are subjected to blizzards and rapid freezing. Wolves stalk the streets. People who are able to, flee south, where they find the Mexican border closed to them. It all looks pretty grim. There's been a sudden catastrophic climate change and the planet is plunged into a new ice age.

The quality of the cinematography and CGI, as good as they are, don't make a good story unnecessary, but they still help the film to be very enjoyable despite a high degree of schmaltz. The wolves are obviously computer generated (just as well because one of them gets a series of vicious clouts with a torch and a couple of them have bone-crushing collisions with walls and doors) but the flocks of birds and the movement of water, snow and ice are very realistic. The acting and the dialogue are not bad but the human interest element of the story really is a bit sickly. Now that I've watched the film a few times, I find I just skip all the emotional goo and go straight to the entertaining parts - mostly the special effects. Examples that impressed and entertained me (the sort of clips they show on the trailers):

• the breaking off of the Larsen B Antarctic ice shelf
• the rash of tornados tearing Los Angeles apart
• the huge wave that crashed over the statue of liberty and into New York
• the quick freeze flag
• the discovery in the library of a section of publications on tax law that nobody - not even the most devoted bibliophile - would mind burning in order to keep warm

There are a few extras. The commentaries are fairly interesting. The trailers are useful. I now know that I want to see "I Robot" and also "Alien vs. Predator" looks interesting though we only see the 'creature workshop' and not any part of the film. The menu programme on this single disc edition is not too good. If you press the menu button, instead of going back to the menu, as happens with most DVDs, this takes you straight back to the interminable warnings about pirating films and you can't skip them. So best not to press the menu button if you just wanted to select a different scene for example. On balance, I think this is an entertaining film and well worth the price. If you like disaster films, you should enjoy this.