Whilst working on a polar expedition, climatologist Jack Hall has a narrow escape from death when a huge ice shelf breaks away from the main ice cap. Fearing that this may suggest an abrupt and dangerous change in the world’s climate, Hall sets about trying to analyse and model the effect of the shift in frozen water. When his worst fears are confirmed, he goes in front of an advisory council to express his grave concerns. His words fall on deaf ears – he has little in the way of actual evidence and although the implications of what he says are great, the world’s leaders are generally more concerned with the cost impact of taking any remedial action.

Around the world, strange meteorological events are taking place. In India, snow falls on the Taj Mahal. Australia suffers the worst typhoon in recorded history and in Japan, freak hailstones the size of rocks start to fall from the sky. But despite the fevered media interest, the world takes little notice of the warnings of what is about to happen. As dark clouds start too loom over Northern America, Jack Hall and his colleagues continue to analyse the scenario that they fear will start to happen. To their horror, the original estimate of one year decreases to six to eight months, and then decreases further to six to eight weeks. When Mother Nature flexes the first of her muscles and destroys Los Angeles, the world suddenly starts to listen to Jack. But it may just be too late. Can the world survive until tomorrow – let alone the day after?

I like disaster movies. In fact I love them. I don’t know what it is about them, and I know that the whole idea is generally rather morbid, but few films make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck the way that disaster films do. With modern special effects, directors can now trash the world to a far greater and far more realistic extent than ever before. The Day After Tomorrow is written, produced and directed by Rolland Emmerich who is fast becoming an expert in destruction. In Independence Day, the aliens trashed nearly every major city in the world and in Godzilla, a huge lizard trashed most of New York. The Day After Tomorrow is Emmerich’s first film in four years – and is well worth the wait.

I’m not going to suggest that The Day After Tomorrow is a sophisticated film, nor is it a particularly intelligent one. It has all the usual ingredients of the genre. The script isn’t very good at all. It’s filled with all those usual corny one-liners that people only seem to be able to come up with in disaster films. The hero of the tale is having parenting problems. His son gets stranded in New York. Said hero then has to go and rescue his son, as though there is some greater significance in this than the fact that the world is falling to bits around him. There are politicians and leaders who refuse to believe what they’re told –until it’s too late. There is a beautiful, yet intelligent female expert who gets all the guys going. There is a quiet English man who takes to the Scotch when things start to go tits up. Let’s face it, if you don’t like this sort of film, then The Day After Tomorrow will have you cringing.

These things aside, however, you would be foolish not to see this film at the cinema. Only on a big screen do I think you can really appreciate the events as they are told. As the film progressed, and the world effectively started to end, I can honestly say that I found the whole thing awe-inspiring and rather shocking.

There are essentially two major scenes of destruction.

Los Angeles is the first city to fall and is hit by incredibly powerful tornadoes that simply devastate everything in their path. The build-up to the scene is atmospheric and authentic. The skies darken. The wind starts to pick up and then the camera moves from ground to air as the huge current of air and clouds manifests itself into huge, terrifying tornadoes. The HOLLYWOOD sign is ripped to shreds as a twister cuts along the Hollywood hills and the city’s skyscrapers are sliced and diced in much the same way. We get eye witness accounts from the streets as a few hapless reporters try their best to film the events before they get swept away themselves. And then there is calm. But it’s only a brief respite.

As the rain starts to fall on New York, the streets become more and more flooded. The storm drains overflow and the water in the harbour starts to rise higher and higher. Finally, an enormous tidal wave comes in and hits the city in the most devastating way possible. The tidal wave is only just short of the Statue of Liberty and sweeps away everything in its path. As it hits the city, whole highways of cars and lorries are simply washed away like little pieces of wood. The skyscrapers and tower blocks nearest the shoreline are blasted into pieces when the wave first hits the city and then as the wave settles down, huge volumes of sea water are sent rushing through the city streets. It’s a truly terrifying scene for two main reasons.

Firstly, the sheer scale and power of the tidal wave is inherently terrifying. The huge buildings that line the streets of New York always seem strong and protective but under the deluge of water, they seem feeble and useless. As the streets disappear under fifty feet of water, nothing can stand in the way. As you watch the terrified citizens struggling to escape, you really can imagine what it must be like to be in such a situation – and that’s a pretty terrifying thought.

Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, it’s very difficult to ignore the obvious similarities between the film and what happened on 9/11 in the same city. As the film’s streets fill with water that hurtles around the corners and across the streets, you instantly remember the terrible images of the smoke and dust that filled the streets of New York when the Twin Towers fell. When you think that the collapse of two towers took thousands of lives, it really brings home how many people would die in such a disaster as this. I suddenly felt my own mortality. Greatly.

The special effects are outstanding – virtually faultless in fact. Whilst American land marks are used for a bit of show business (e.g. the HOLLYWOOD sign) they are also used to demonstrate the scale of the disaster. When the tidal wave drowns the Statue of Liberty up to her neck you know how much water we’re actually talking about. As the city drowns, freezes and then freezes some more it always look authentic. Despite having seen various programmes about how the effects were created, it still feels very realistic and is credit to Emmerich’s vision and perspective. Let’s face it, this guy knows how to trash things!

Needless to say, the cast really takes second place to the effects and like most other disaster movies, none of them really stand out. Dennis Quaid does his best to be square-jawed and grim-faced as Jack Hall and Jake Gyllenhaal is pleasantly understated as his troubled son. There’s some love interest for Jake in the form of Emmy Rossum (far too smiling for my liking) but the only character I really “liked” was Ian Holm’s quiet English professor who maintained real charm as things went pear-shaped. There’ll be no Oscar nominations here though, that’s for sure.

So is there a point to all this, or is it disaster for entertainment’s sake only? Well, clearly, the whole film has a message. The Day After Tomorrow is a demonstration of what happens when you shit in your own bed. There could be few people who would watch this film and fail to understand the potentially disastrous implications that our continued abuse of the environment will have. But as a mission, Emmerich is only ever superficially successful in his attempts to educate. The film dwells very little on how things got to this stage, assuming that the audience will understand what it’s all about. This is fair enough, but I would have expected a few more subtleties to bring the message home. The title sequence for example could have featured footage and images of what it is that Man has done to damage the environment. The trouble with The Day After Tomorrow is that it never really reflects upon, nor considers The Day Before Yesterday. And I think this is quite an important point. There are a few little digs that I liked – the American Vice-President’s insistence that the American economy is more fragile than the world’s environment is deliciously ironic and frighteningly apt.

The other barrier to getting the message across is that The Day After Tomorrow feels really far-fetched. The speed of the disaster may be appropriate to the film but the time scale never really sits right from a scientific perspective. Furthermore, there is a suggestion that the real disaster is mainly isolated to the Northern Hemisphere and that the South fares much better. This is rather contradicted by the earlier statements of weather reports in Southern locations such as Australia. Fundamentally, it also seems highly unlikely to me that only half the world would be affected in such an extreme way. I think the moral of this tale might be that if you are going to destroy the world, you can’t really cop out and just destroy the top bit!

All this aside, I still loved The Day After Tomorrow – and the effect on the audience was much the same. Few films these days will have audience members crying out loud but when the tidal wave hit New York, more than a handful of people sat near me proclaimed, “Oh Shit” out loud. There IS a very serious point to this film, which, ironically enough, gets a bit lost amidst all the effects and action. But it’s still a great movie. Enjoy.

Highly recommended