Reviewers Score:
Average Overall Score:
Story lineThe climate is changing, the effects of Global Warming are causing strange weather anomalies around the world. When climatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) addresses a UN conference on Global Warming he suggests the possiblity of a modern Ice-Age (which he loosely predicts could happen within the next 100 to 1000 years) nobody takes too much notice, except for a British Professor (Ian Holm) whose job is to monitor events in the Atlantic Ocean. He becomes concerned when his equipment suddenly starts registering a drastic drop in temperature, and immediately informs Hall...
New York, Tokyo, Europe, in fact most of the World is suddenly gripped by the worst weather ever recorded by man, hailstones the size of footballs, torrential rain and Tornadoes are causing havoc on a global scale. Jack and his team try to analyse the storms and are horrified by their findings.
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He is asked to address the President of the United States and inform him of his predictions. The President orders an immediate evacuation of the Southern states of America, but is it too late for the millions of people in the North? Jack's son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is in the danger zone, trapped in a Library, and will not be evacuated as it is too dangerous. His father will have to venture into Arctic conditions if he is to rescue his son and keep a promise made in a frantic phone call as the storm hits Manhattan.
Score
With such an ambitious storyline you would expect the soundtrack to be intricate, elaborate and powerful and I am pleased to say that Harald Kloser delivers without exception. The music adds to the edge of the seat special effects, the sound effects ensure you fall off that seat regularly.
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Extras
The single disc version has the following extras:
2x Audio Commentaries
Inside look at Alien vs Predator
Conclusion
The day after Tomorrow is undoubtably visually very impressive, with some of the best computer generated images in any film to date: watching a torrent of water consuming Manhattan in amazing detail definately has impact. The script is better than most "end of the world" films I have seen, the acting is first class with the actors being well cast in their roles. I guess there are the usual cliches that come with disaster movies, but nothing too detrimental to the film.
If I have one main criticsm of this disc it is the total lack of extras, I am not aware of what is available on the 2 disc version, but I do feel at least a "making of" featurette could have been included on the single disc. This lets the reviewed version down hugely as personally I really enjoy watching how the special effects are achieved and seeing some of the people who work behind the scenes. Another irritation is that nearly all the action is in the first half of the movie, this leaves the second half feeling a little flat.
In conclusion The Day After Tomorrow is still the best film of its type I have seen, but in all honesty if I bought this film again I would choose the 2 disc version.
Visually fantastic, overly long
I agree with your point about the film being flat in the second half, personally I think there could have been more action scenes from around the world as well.4 out of 5 is a bit high I would give it 3 although as you point out it is visually stunning.
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Point Taken
Welcome to the site John.You make a very valid point about the lack of "rest of the world" action, something I should have put in the review actually.
I would have liked to have given the film 3.5 but as I have set the site up to allow members to vote in increments of 1 I thought I should do the same for reviewers, I may change the scoring system and go for a 3 point system that scores individual areas of the movie i.e. Film, Soundtrack and on disc extras each item would be scored out of 5 and members would cast votes on the same criteria.
Do you think this would give a better overall scoring system?
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Reviewers wanted
Multi points
Have to say I would go for the multi point system as it is likely to give more flexibility in scoring.On another note what reviews do you have lined up?
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Re: Multi points
I think it is likely that in the very near future I will convert the site over to that kind of scoring system, it actually sounds more and more like a good idea.I am already in the process of writing a review for Blade, Blade 2 and trinity will follow, then there are the likes of Riddick and V for Vendetta plus I am looking into getting some newer films to do as well.
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Reviewers wanted