The Day After Tomorrow

Turning off your brain and not looking for any meaning to it is the way to approach what Emmerich presents in his two-hour disaster vision of the coarsest grain. Although it might irritate climatologists, why get upset when he serves us a picture of thousands of Americans begging to enter Mexico? At that moment, it is necessary to have a hearty laugh and lightly acknowledge that there is no more American American than this defector German, who spends high budgets like the biggest snob and yet unabashedly winks at the audience, almost begging them to enjoy the ride with him. Serving up a few remarkable special effects sequences pleasantly elevates the dose of patriotism, which could knock down an elephant, and it's necessary to handle it with an eye roll and a loud chuckle. The perfect sabotage of Hollywood! (06/16/2004)

On a second viewing, it's just a little bit better. Roland Emmerich toned it down with pathos, he doesn't always hit the mark, but he can win over the audience. The climate action boasts fantastic visual effects and thrilling action sequences. Unfortunately, there isn't as much of it as in his previous films, and especially the second half can bring a feeling of boredom, mainly due to a weak screenplay and a flood of clichés that unpleasantly stick to the very likeable heroes. (09/10/2004)

The first half of The Day After Tomorrow is pleasing but in no way surprising. We’ve already seen everything in the trailer. And the second half is just boredom stacked on top of boredom. It’s not Roland Emmerich’s dumbest sci-fi movie, but it is his least entertaining. Whereas Stargate and Independence Day were the sincere playthings of an admitted man-child, The Day After Tomorrow is a drama with pretensions of being serious by a mediocre filmmaker trying to do great things. (05/26/2004)

Roland Emmerich and his umpteenth variation on disaster/end of the world. The first half is certainly better than the second half, in which not much happens in terms of catastrophic action, but even so, I could probably imagine more from a 2-hour disaster than "just" one flood and one frost. The second half is more or less standing still and finishing the fates of the individual characters, so it doesn't warm up that much, which is a pity. Visually it's an "okay" thing for that time, but nowadays it doesn't stick out much. Acting-wise it's also a good average, but what annoyed me a lot are sometimes extremely illogical bullshit, that takes the viewer for a total idiot (like the frost progression in the last half hour, which went meter by meter and the characters ran away from it lol...). In the end, I was probably expecting a bigger bang considering how the film is being praised and the director's sonorous name, but it was nothing but a weaker average that stumbles on a totally awkward ending that doesn't really explain anything and where all this nature stuff just stops all by itself. (03/27/2024)

Emmerich knows his stuff. With compelling visuals, likeable characters, a few tornadoes and a tidal wave, he manages to deliver so much sincere cinematic fun that you can't be mad at how childish it is. As far as entertainment value goes, The Day After Tomorrow isn't bad, everything looks great, it oozes the requisite dose of fatality, and the two hours pass by in a flurry of tried-and-true genre clichés, with Emmerich-esque gems that fly by faster than you can say frost. Compared to that, the story is abysmal. Once again, the heart of it all is the standard epicentre of Hollywood – Manhattan, with the situation elsewhere in the world only vaguely referred to through a newscast –, dumb people running away from huge torrents of water or getting a freezing door slammed in the faces if they're not interesting. If you only want to have fun, you will be able to overlook these "small details", but I have to stick with 3*, if only because I gave four to the much more entertaining and wholesome 2012. 65% (11/30/2015)