The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Jack Hall, paleoclimatologist, must make a daring trek from Washington, D.C. to New York City, to reach his son, trapped in the cross-hairs of a sudden international storm which plunges the planet into a new Ice Age.

Director:

Roland Emmerich

Writers:

Roland Emmerich (story), Roland Emmerich (screenplay)

Stars:

Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emmy Rossum

Won 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 5 wins & 12 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Dennis Quaid	...	Jack Hall
Jake Gyllenhaal	...	Sam Hall
Emmy Rossum	...	Laura Chapman
Dash Mihok	...	Jason Evans
Jay O. Sanders	...	Frank Harris
Sela Ward	...	Dr. Lucy Hall
Austin Nichols	...	J.D.
Arjay Smith	...	Brian Parks
Tamlyn Tomita	...	Janet Tokada
Sasha Roiz	...	Parker
Ian Holm	...	Terry Rapson
Nassim Sharara	...	Saudi Delegate
Carl Alacchi	...	Venezuelan Delegate
Kenneth Welsh	...	Vice President Becker
Michel 'Gish' Abou-Samah	...	Saudi Translator (as Michael A. Samah)

Storyline

As Paleoclimatologist named Jack Hall is in Antartica, he discovers that a huge ice sheet has sheared off. But what he does not know is that this event will trigger a massive climate shift that will affect the world population. Meanwhile, his son Sam is with friends in New York to attend an event. There they discover that it has been raining non-stop for the past 3 days, and after a series of weather-related disasters begin to occur over the world, everybody realizes the world is entering a new Ice Age and the world population begins trying to evacuate to the warmer climates of the south. Jack makes a daring attempt to rescue his son and his friends who are stuck in New York and who have managed to survive not only a massive wave but also freezing cold temperatures that could possibly kill them.

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Plot Keywords:

global warming | end of the world | climate crisis | climate | weather | 

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Taglines:

This year, a sweater won't do.

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for intense situations of peril

Details

Official Sites:

20th Century Fox [Japan]

Country:

USA

Language:

English Japanese French Arabic

Release Date:

28 May 2004 (USA)

Also Known As:

Tomorrow

Filming Locations:

Colton Street & N Edgeware Road, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$125,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$85,807,341, 30 May 2004, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$186,740,799

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$544,272,402

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox, Centropolis Entertainment, Lions Gate Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

124 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The casting of Kenneth Welsh as the Vice President was controversial, due to his physical resemblance to Vice President Dick Cheney. However, Roland Emmerich insisted on it for that very reason, admitting that the characters of the President and Vice President were intended to be criticism of the Bush and Cheney administration's opposition to the Kyoto Protocol for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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Goofs

American glaciologists in Antarctica are heard using US units of measurement during their work. The metric system is in use by glaciologists - even American ones - in all scientific contexts.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Frank Harris: See how it's done?
Jason Evans: Yeah, I think I got the hang of it.

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Crazy Credits

The commentary says the closing credits are 8mins long, and were sped-up from an original 13mins duration.

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Connections

Featured in Hollywood's Top Ten: Dennis Quaid Movies (2011)

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Soundtracks

Do You Really Want to Hurt Me
Written by Boy George (as George O'Dowd), Jon Moss, Mikey Craig (as Michael Craig) and Roy Hay
Performed by Culture Club
Courtesy of Virgin Records
Under license from EMI Film & Television Music

User Reviews

Smoke and mirrors, all flash and no substance

THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW

Aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Sound formats: Dolby Digital / DTS

Utterly routine blockbuster, loosely based on scientific predictions of disastrous climate changes due to global warming, in which the Gulf Stream is essentially 'shut off', triggering a series of freak weather conditions (giant hailstones in Japan, tornadoes in Los Angeles, tidal waves in New York, etc.) which culminate in a new Ice Age. Dennis Quaid is the obsessive climatologist who struggles to convince sceptical authorities of the impending catastrophe, and who is forced to rescue his son (Jake Gyllenhaal) after the boy becomes stranded in Manhattan following torrential floods and the subsequent Big Freeze. Industrial Light & Magic unleashes a wealth of attention-grabbing visual effects during the film's impressive opening stretch, effectively sidelining the crudely drawn characters and half-baked melodramatics, but the superficial script (by Jeffrey Nachmanoff and director Roland Emmerich) fails to sustain the initial momentum, and the second half becomes bogged down in Quaid's ho-hum rescue mission.

To be fair, the movie DOES contain a number of awe-inspiring sequences (the massive wave which rises from the ocean to engulf New York; the view from space as three colossal storms circle the entire northern hemisphere of the earth; a trawler floating serenely down a flooded Fifth Avenue), and a couple of satirical jabs are surprisingly potent (most notably, the mass exodus of American citizens INTO Mexico!), but the movie amounts to little more than smoke and mirrors, all flash and no substance.