Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
The Day after Tomorrow (2004)
Director: Roland Emmerich
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
He had aliens zap the Big Apple in Independence Day, and a latter-day Godzilla stomp it to mush. Now mayhem meister Emmerich floods the place with a tidal wave, then freezes it over for an encore. Thus is banished any inkling that 9/11 might have affected Hollywood's appetite for childlike destruction. But there's also a serious agenda beyond the usual CGI fiesta, since these rising sea levels and glacial temperatures result from melting polar ice caps altering the ocean currents, an unavoidable by-product of global warming. Sure, the compacted time frame here is gleeful nonsense, but it's solidly founded on environmentalists' credible warnings, allowing the movie to trash the Northern Hemisphere in the noble cause of eco-awareness. Connoisseurs of disaster-movie tack will be relieved to know their favourite elements remain intact, from slumming performers (boffin Holm turns ashen upon the realisation he's facing a snowy demise with only half a bottle of single malt), to dumb macho heroics (scientist Quaid's too late to save the world, so he'll make do with rescuing son Gyllenhaal from iced-in Manhattan), and the regulation child leukaemia 'victim in peril'. True, genuine excitement's in short supply, but the notion that it'll take the onset of a new Ice Age to alter US government environmental policy adds a properly cautionary note to one's enjoyment of the cheese.Author: TJ
Cast & crew
Director: Roland Emmerich
Producer: Mark Gordon, Roland Emmerich
Cast: Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ian Holm, Emmy Rossum, Dash Mihok, Kenneth Welsh, Jay O Sanders, Austin Nichols, Perry King, Nestor Serrano, Adrian Lester, Sheila MCarthy full cast
Genre(s): Epics
Duration: 125 mins
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now