The Day After Tomorrow

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The Day After Tomorrow ★★½ 2004 (PG-13)

It was more fun watching the good guys battle aliens in Emmerich's “Independence Day” than this bunch of mopes who try to survive global warming. Paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Quaid) predicts a new ice age and, sure enough, there's suddenly softball-sized hail blanketing Tokyo, L.A. gets leveled by tornadoes, New York is buried under ice and snow, and most of the northern hemisphere is wiped out just for fun. Jack's intrepid son Sam (Gyllen-haal)is trapped in Manhattan, riding out the weather with some friends in the New York Public Library and flirting with classmate Laura (Rossum). Meanwhile, Dad decides to snowshoe it from D.C. to NYC to rescue his boy. If you like watching familiar monuments destroyed (poor Lady Liberty), this special effects melodrama is for you. 123m/C DVD, Bluray Disc, UMD . US Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sela Ward, Emmy Rossum, Ian Holm, Dash Mihok, Jay O. Sanders, Tamlyn Tomita, Austin Nichols, Arjay Smith, Kenneth Welsh, Glenn Plummer, Nestor Serrano, Adrian Lester, Sheila McCarthy, Perry King; D: Roland Emmerich; W: Roland Emmerich, Jeffrey Nachmanoff; C: Ueli Steiger; M: Harald Kloser. British Acad. '04: Visual FX.