The Day After Tomorrow

Review posted on 22 February 2006 by Alice Curteis, World-wise reviewer

This is how Hollywood portrays what could happen in the United States if global warming sets in, bringing the host of anticipated climatic disasters and the beginnings of a new ice age.

With big movie budget special effects and computer animation, it tells the dramatic story of a climatologist trying to save the world (the US?) from catastrophe while attempting to reach his son, who's caught in New York City as the ice age takes hold in the northern USA.

The film's publicity poster gives you an idea of where things are going, with the Statue of Liberty's arm emerging from a sea of ice and the Manhattan skyline similarly stranded in the background. Comment is divided between those who feel that it's a (very?) good disaster movie and those who find it clichéd and inhabited by cardboard characters.

It could depend on whether you're a disaster movie buff yourself as to whether you take the trouble to check it out. From the global issues point of view it won't tell you much you don't already know but if it shocks a few thousand people into waking up to the horrors of what lies ahead if nothing is done then it will have performed something of a service.

Rating: 5/5