The Day After Tomorrow (2004) Dir: Roland Emmerich
Disaster films aren't often the type to gain critical acclaim, but they do seem to maintain a relatively popular standing in the horror genre, thanks, no doubt, in part to their often absurd action and apocalyptic themes. This Roland Emmerich directed disaster film is one of those that seems to stay in the minds of fans of the subgenre more than most.
I was pretty impressed, considering the film came out in 2004, with the visual effects of the film. Sure, if you really focus on the CGI, it looks a little bit dated, but, for the most part, it's all really solid - especially for the scale of the film.
The story was fairly typical of the genre, but, for what it's worth, I still enjoyed it. I have certainly seen a lot worse. The various plots were relatively memorable, although, I felt that the actual disaster arc was a little underwhelming - at least in how it ended.
Jake Gyllenhaal provided a pretty solid protagonist for the film. He showed plenty of the talent that would help to establish him as a major Hollywood star later on in his career. And, while this certainly isn't his best performance, he still acted better than just about anyone else I'm the film.
Dennis Quaid was another who gave a fairly good performance in one of the key roles. However, it's worth saying, he was a little forgettable at times, especially in the second half of the film. In fairness, the writing for his character's arc also failed to aid his cause.
Emmy Rossum was the most noteworthy of the supporting cast - she was pretty likable, honestly. I really thought she deserved more screentime. As far as the rest of the cast, those deserving of mentions were Dash Mihok, Ian Holm, Austin Nichols and Glenn Plummer.
Overall, while this is certainly isn't a great film, it has some pretty exciting action sequences and did well to capture the scale of its disaster premise. Like all decent end-of-the-world films, I do feel like it's a film I can see myself revisiting in the future, if only for some fairly simple entertainment.
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