Disaster film depicts modern doom

Recent history makes 'Day After Tomorrow' seem more realistic.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
Roland Emmerich, who single-handedly reinvented the disaster movie with his 1996 alien invasion flick "Independence Day," returns to more conventional doomsday terrain in the new global warming fright flick "The Day After Tomorrow."
Like 1970s schlockmeister Irwin Allen ("The Poseidon Adventure," "The Towering Inferno"), Emmerich knows how to throw a good "end-of-the-world" blowout, and the $125-million "DAT" is a state-of-the-art affair that doesn't skimp on party favors. The special effects are suitably apocalyptic, the cast is first-rate (including Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal and Ian Holm), and Emmerich, bless his heart, even manages to wrap things up at just under two hours.
Considering the horrific events of the past several years, I'm not sure whether audiences are really clamoring for a movie predicated on such large-scale mass destruction. If anything, our recent history makes the meteorological nightmares of "DAT" seem not only sickeningly plausible, but perfectly reasonable.
Tidal waves hitting Manhattan? Check. Typhoons swallowing up Australia and a cyclone demolishing Los Angeles? Ditto. It's enough to make you join Greenpeace and move to a granola-and-nuts commune in the Mojave Desert.
Fortunately, we've got the brilliant, if a tad obsessive climatologist Jack Hall (Quaid) on the case. Hall has developed a "nerd-who-cries-wolf" reputation thanks to his crackpot theories about abrupt climate shifts. At a UN conference in New Delhi, Hall tries scaring the assembled diplomats into action by making proclamations like, "I think we're on the verge of a major climate shift," and "If we don't act now, it's going to be too late." It takes the melting of the polar ice cap for all these Doubting Thomases to finally sit up and take notice, though. With massive devastation now crippling the planet ("When this storm is over, we'll be the new Ice Age"), it's Hall and his ragtag team of science-wonks (Dash Mihak and Jay O. Sanders) to the rescue.
Movie action
The bulk of the action is devoted to Hall's perilous trek from Washington, D.C., to Manhattan, where his teenage son, Sam (Gyllenhaal, dependably strong), is holed up with other survivors at the New York Public Library (which, in this movie's kooky geography, is within spitting distance of the Statue of Liberty). Sam, who's in the Big Apple for a scholastic decathlon, proves to be a chip off the old block, single-handedly guiding his fellow refugees to safety.
Holding vigil on the sidelines is Sam's mom and Hall's estranged doctor wife (underutilized Sela Ward) who furrows her brow and clenches her fists a lot.
While Emmerich could have definitely played up the satirical aspects of the plot a bit more (American citizens start illegally crossing the border into Mexico since it's one of the few safe spots left; Third World countries give relief aid to the United States; and Sam's library group must determine which books to use as fuel to keep their fire blazing), "The Day After Tomorrow" mostly succeeds as both a cautionary tale and rousing hot-weather popcorn entertainment. Chances are you'll be paying a lot closer attention to the Weather Channel from now on.
XWrite Milan Paurich at milanpaurich@aol.com.