Hello climate change, 2004 saw the creation of The Day after Tomorrow, another film about natural disasters set to destroy earth and the human race. As far as disaster movies go the usual focus is a type of mass devastation, meteorites, floods, tsunamis, tornados, excess snow, rain and sun courtesy of global warming. The list really could go on, and most of the time audiences end up leaving the cinema feeling less than awed.
The film stars Dennis Quaid (Any Given Sunday, Vantage Point) and Jake Gyllenhaall (Brokeback Mountain, Love and Other Drugs ) as father and son who end up on opposite sides of the US when Mother Nature goes berserk. Quaid, plays a climatologist Jack Hall, who on discovering that Earth is in some serious danger warns government officials of his research and findings. The predicted date will not be in their life time, however on reconstructing results they find it will occur way sooner than forecasted. The government ignore this leaving citizens of earth (America) to carry on their day to day lives. Blissfully ignorant until D Day, leading with the attitude that it’s too late to undo the damage inflicted on earth , let’s deal with it as it comes….if only they knew.
Mean while in Manhattan, catastrophe capital of the world, son Sam Hall (Gyllenhaall) is going about his business with his friends, attending a college event when calamity ensues. NYC, one of the most desired cities in the world to visit, begins to get hit by the most violent tsunamis, tornados, snow and ice storms. The beheading the Statue of Liberty doesn’t stop it from toppling, against all odds its left standing in the snow. A nice metaphor on American resilience in times of trouble, completely co-incidental.
As he becomes stranded in the New York Public Library after out running a humungous wall of water which rapidly turned to ice, him and his friends switch to survival mode. Now the fight to outlast the weather begins, and Quaid determined to be reunited with his son decides to do the impossible, cover the extreme conditions to get to New York through rain and snow..literally.
The better parts of the film are watching Manhattan get pummelled by everything Mother Nature can throw at it, the special effects are visually striking and fast paced. Although the acting was not the best, and Quaid and Gyllenhaall have certainly stared in better films, its entertaining and the glimpses of impending doom are daunting. Being someone that recycles, walks when possible and is generally worried about the state of the environment, I was anxious it won’t be too long until winters turn arctic, and sun rays will become unbearable.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
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