There are some definite advantages to walking into a movie with low expectations. If the movie sucks, no big deal, you got exactly what you expected. Hopefully, the things that got you to see the movie in the first place make it worthwhile. The other possibility is that the movie will surprise you by being really good. I walked into "The Day After Tomorrow" with low expectations, and, well, I got exactly what I expected. On the plus side, what got me to go see the movie in the first place made it worth it. Well, almost worth it.
I knew that "The Day After Tomorrow" would be preposterous, and it would have a weak story and awful dialogue. That's what I expected, and that's what I got. But I didn't see the movie for any of that stuff, I went to see it because of the special effects. That's it. I probably could have waited for the DVD, but special effects like these demand to be seen on a big screen. The only problem is that most of the special effects are in the trailers and commercials already, so there are no real surprises. You know that Los Angeles will be destroyed by a series of tornadoes, you know that New York City will be hit by a tidal wave and then frozen over. When all that happens, it looks great, the special effects really are phenomenal, but the majority of the film is actually devoid of any special effects, and it can get pretty damn boring.
This movie is over two hours long, but a lot coulda been cut out, making the movie shorter, tighter, and more fast-paced. Did we really need the subplot with the cancer patient? Did we really need the scene with the attacking wolves? Actually, that happened while three characters were looking for medicine for their sick friend, and I think that whole thing coulda been excised, as well. This movie has a lotta problems, but if about 30 minutes of the uninteresting stuff was taken out, the movie would still be crap, but it would be more entertaining.
"The Day After Tomorrow" was directed by Roland Emmerich, the same guy who directed the "Godzilla" remake, and "Independence Day." If you've seen those movies, you pretty much know what you can expect with this one. I'd say that this movie is a little worse than "Godzilla" (not that I loved that movie, but at least there was a lot in the movie that you didn't see in trailers and commercials), but it's a lot better than "Independence Day," a movie I hated. Seriously, I have a really hard time with that movie. Did you ever notice all the racial stereotypes? The movie has the stereotypical black guy, the stereotypical Jewish guy, the stereotypical OLD Jewish guy, the stereotypical gay guy... it was absolutely ridiculous. "Godzilla" was a little better, but it still had the stereotypical New York Italian guy. Thankfully, most stereotypes are nowhere to be found in "The Day After Tomorrow."
Roland Emmerich is a director who knows how to put some amazing images on film. I might trash his movies, but visually, they're all amazing. The main problem seems to be that he tends to be part of the writing process. In "The Day After Tomorrow," he came up with the story and he wrote the screenplay (he wrote the screenplay with another writer, Jeffrey Nachmanoff, and this is his first credited work on a feature film). Roland Emmerich helped write the "Godzilla" remake, "Independence Day," "Stargate," and "Universal Soldier," all of which he directed, and none of which were very good. His best film as a director was the one he did before this one, which was "The Patriot," and the only credited writer in that film is Robert Rodat (though admittedly, there is a scene or two in that film that seems to have been written by Emmerich). Either way, Roland Emmerich got no writing credit in that film, and it's his best one. That's no coincidence, folks.
Like with Emmerich's other films, there are serious flaws in logic, serious enough to where you can't just rely on "suspension of disbelief." I doubt anything will ever beat Vin Diesel outracing an avalanche in "XXX," but certain things in this film come close.
The cast does the best they can with the material given to them, and the material really is horrible. I can't imagine how bad the script was, you can't see cool special effects on a screenplay. Still, the valiant cast all marched forward. Dennis Quaid (he recently starred in "The Alamo," "The Rookie," and "Frequency") is the main character, I suppose, in that he's the one who discovers the problem and tries to warn everyone (naturally, his warning falls mostly on deaf ears). His son is played by Jake Gyllenhaal (he's starred in some really good movies, like "October Sky" and "Donnie Darko"... he's also starred in a couple of pretty bad ones, like "The Good Girl" and "Bubble Boy"). I'm not sure how I feel about him as an actor, 'cause he almost always seems to play the same character. He's fine in this movie, but he doesn't do anything new. His love interest is played by Emmy Rossum (she was "Katie Markum," Sean Penn's daughter, in "Mystic River"). Her role is basically "the girl," and she does it well, I guess. She's pretty, too, which always helps. The movie also has nice performances from Sela Ward (Harrison Ford's wife in "The Fugitive," and she briefly starred in a TV series called "Once and Again") and the great Ian Holm (he played "Bilbo Baggins" in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy... he was also in "From Hell," "The Fifth Element," "The Sweet Hereafter," "Brazil," "Time Bandits," and he was quite memorable in "Alien").
Yes, "The Day After Tomorrow" is pretty bad, which would be fine, if it was shorter, had more action, more special effects, and less of the unnecessary stuff. Better yet, a really good script woulda been nice. But as mindless entertainment goes, it's an okay movie. At least it's better than "Independence Day."
Scale of 1-10: 5