DAY AFTER TOMORROW, THE - Blu-ray review

Politician Al Gore has pushed the topic of Global Warming to the forefront of environmental discussion and it is a definite hot topic in the world today. Director Roland Emmerich is a man who has created a number of films that deal with apocalyptic levels of destruction. "Independence Day" and "Godzilla" were big blockbuster films where he partnered with Dean Devlin and blew up New York City and the White House. In "The Day After Tomorrow," Emmerich is without his producing partner Dean Devlin and he tackles even more destruction than before and does so under the guise of global warming. Unfortunately for Emmerich, he didn't confer with Al Gore on the science itself and "The Day After Tomorrow" may have some big budget sequences, but the science and the film are both quite laughable.

Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) is a paleoclimatologist. In other words, he is a scientist that deals exclusively with how the climate is changing and its effects on civilization. While on a core drilling assignment in Anatartica, Hall nearly loses one of his two companions when Frank Harris (Jay O. Sanders) nearly falls through a large crevice that is created when a polar ice shelf separates from the continent. Jack, Frank and the third member of the team, Jason Evans (Dash Mihok) survive and return to tell the world of their findings, but the discovery of an ice age generated by global warming is brushed aside by the politicians and world leaders and Jack only reaches out to Scottish scientist Dr. Terry Rapson (Ian Holm) who soon witnesses first hand the dramatic climate change suggested by Jack.

The changes come sudden. Softball sized hail assaults Japan. Record amounts of snow falls upon the typically arid India. Migratory birds quickly leave New York City in droves and large twisters destroy Los Angeles. The doomsday conditions that Jack spoke of earlier begin to happen almost overnight and the collapsed ice shelf was just the first of many events that would put the world in an uproar. Rapson witnesses buoys failing with freezing temperatures in waters that are typically warm. Jack and his team welcome Dr. Lucy Hall (Sela Ward) to the team as they come up with a schedule for how the violent weather conditions are going to affect life and what they should expect in the future. Unfortunately, they realize that the world is in for catastrophic changes in roughly six to eight weeks.

Sam Hall (Jake Gyllenhaal) is Jack's son and has traveled to the Big Apple to take part in a scholastic competition. He travels with his teammates Laura Chapman (Emily Rossum) and Brian Parks (Arjay Smith). Sam feels deep affections for Laura and is part of the team only to be near her. She is incredibly smart and beautiful and Sam finds himself struggling when students from other competing skills made advances towards Laura. Laura is not Sam's only problem. His relationship with his father is not very good, as Jack is always on the move with his science and investigations. Although his father has not been the best parent, the impending weather storm will prove that having a noted paleoclimatologist as a father will save his life and that of Laura and Brian.

The weather quickly devastates the world and a storm that encompasses much of the Northern Hemisphere threatens to kill everybody with an instant perma-freeze. Sam, Laura and others are trapped in the New York City public library after a tidal wave pushed them there to seek safety. A large Russian cargo ship has also sailed down the city's streets and resided near the library. Laura was hurt during the tidal wave and Sam needs to raid the desolate ship for medical supplies to save Laura's life. He runs into wolves, but survives and everybody burns books to stay warm in the face of the freezing storm. Sam finally offers his true feelings to Laura.

Meanwhile, Jack has decided to travel from Washington D.C. to New York City to meet up with his son and help him survive. He does so with the help of Frank and Jason. After passing through Philadelphia, Jack and his two colleagues must walk the rest of the way in the fatally cold storm. Both Hall men were forced to survive the wave of instant freezing air by staying warm for a few moments in cramped quarters. Sam survived near the fireplace of the library, where mass amounts of books were thrown into the fire and Jack kept warm by using a restaurant's stove for heat. Jack manages to weather the storm and while Frank perished on their journey, Jason makes it the entire way with him where Jack is reunited with his son. At the end, the surviving citizens of the United States look toward the future with hope and Jack leaves on a helicopter with his son.

"The Day After Tomorrow" really is laughable. Most of the science depicted in the film borders on being impossible. Roland Emmerich and his team of filmmakers didn't care too much about making the film realistic and this is a big-bang of a disaster film that tries to entertain with impressive visuals and effects and forgets about story and believability. If you thought the computer virus that defeated the aliens in "Independence Day" was silly, you have not seen anything yet. Even the non-science portions of the story are less than credible. Two documentaries were created just to debunk the science of the film. "Movie Physics: The Day After Tomorrow" and "The Day After Tomorrow: Could it Really Happen?" showed how implausible the film really was. There are also boatloads of continuity errors and plot holes. You can search the Internet for more details on how bad the science is and the story's various shortcomings.

Compared to the disaster films of the Seventies, "The Day After Tomorrow" is visually impressive, but it lacks the character and sense of danger of the older films. I truly did enjoy the tornado attack on Los Angeles the first time I saw it. It was fun in theaters, but when being played on a home theater, the destruction of the Hollywood sign is nowhere near as fun. If it weren't for the big budget weather effects and devastation, there would hardly be much reason to watch this movie. Dennis Quaid is a solid veteran actor and feels horribly misused here. I preferred seeing Gyllenhall cozy up to Emmy Rossum and not Heath Ledger, but he too seemed out of place in this production. It is always a shame to see good actors in a bad film.

Emmerich knows how to make a loud popcorn movie. He succeeded in making "The Day After Tomorrow" very loud. The effects are quite good and there is enough weather-induced carnage to be entertaining enough to sit through "The Day After Tomorrow" once. However, with its horrendous storyline and ludicrous science, there is hardly any reason to sit through "The Day After Tomorrow" for a second serving. The fun factor of "Independence Day" or "Stargate" is sorely absent from "The Day After Tomorrow" and it feels quite wrong to say "Godzilla" was a better film, but it was. This is a loud and expensive movie, but there is no butter on the popcorn with this one.

Video:

As I pointed out in the main body of this review, the only worthwhile reason to watch "The Day After Tomorrow" is for its visuals. The 2.35:1 AVC MPEG-4 transfer does its best to make this visual tour de force look about as good as possible on the high definition Blu-ray format. Even though I felt the storm sequences lost much of their luster after seeing them one time, watching them on Blu-ray was an impressive affair. The disc is quite detailed and features very strong coloring. There are a number of dark scenes in the film and detail is never lost even during the harshest scenes. The particle effects of the CGI work looks very good at 1080p resolution. Each hair of stubble can be picked out on Quaid's chin. Detail is indeed strong, but I didn't feel that "The Day After Tomorrow" bested the absolute top Blu-ray and HD-DVD titles in clarity. The colors show strong reds, yellows and blues. Skin tone coloring is natural looking. The strong whites of the snow perfectly contrast the dark skies of dangerous weather with near perfection. Shadow detail is strong. The source materials were quite clean and no digital flaws were present while watching the film.

Sound:

I could not help myself but enjoy "The Day After Tomorrow" at very high volumes. I set my receiver about five decibels higher than normal to enjoy the kinetic energy of the English 5.1 DTS HD Master Lossless Audio mix. "The Day After Tomorrow" contained some of the deepest and most potent moments I can remember in the .1 LFE channel. This bass heavy mix is quite impressive during the foul weather moments and thankfully, the bass is not alone. Rear surrounds are heavily used throughout the film and when the soundtrack is in full effect, it is a strong enveloping experience with a full 360 degree soundfield. The front channels are strong and heavy. I was so impressed with the dynamic sound effects that I paid little to no attention to the musical score by Harold Kloser and had to revisit the film to listen to the score. It sounds warm and holds up rather nicely, but is lost amongst the more potent moments. Dialogue is clean and holds up rather nicely even when the bass is the most imposing. Also included are French 5.1 Dolby Digital and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtracks and subtitles in English, Spanish, Cantonese and Korean.

Extras:

The Blu-ray release of "The Day After Tomorrow" includes two commentary tracks. The first Commentary by Director/Co-Writer Roland Emmerich and Producer Mark Gordon was recorded just four weeks after the film's theatrical release. There is a lot of information thrown between Emmerich and Gordon, but Gordon felt obligated to spend a lot of his time patting himself on the back and watching the film in complete awe. Emmerich has a deep accent, but it wasn't too difficult to understand. I at least enjoyed Gordon's sometimes candid comments about the unbelievable nature of some scenes. This commentary served some entertainment value, but it wasn't anything overly exciting. The second Commentary by Co-Writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Cinematographer Lieli Steiger, Editor David Brenner and Production Designer Barry Chusid was far drier and more detailed. If you are looking at an indepth look at the production of the film, this commentary is it. This is one of those commentaries that is a good listen for film students.

After the commentary tracks, a number of other extras are included. The Global Warming Trivia Track provides graphical pop-ups with information pertinent to the science of the film and the science behind global warming. If you are listening to one of the commentary tracks, it doesn't hurt to turn this feature on as well. The Search Content provided an index of topics to scroll through. Some were items like "_Death" and others were for actors like "_Gyllenhaal, Jake." Once you select an item from the list, the various instances where the topic can be found in the film is then provided and you can jump directly to a particular scene. This was actually an interesting inclusion and I can think of a few practical uses for it. The third ‘interactive' supplement was the Personal Scene Selections that served as the bookmarking feature for the disc. The neat part of this feature was that you can select scenes and then watch them in order. Use the search, bookmark a scene and then make your own mini movie. Cool.

The standard categories of supplemental materials can also be found on the disc, but with updates via Blu-ray. The Deleted Scenes (18:35) push technology a little further than what was provided with DVD. You can play the scenes via a ‘Play All' feature, or select any of the individual ten scenes and play the selected scenes. You can play an individual scene as well by selecting just that scene and then viewing it. Optional commentary with Roland Emmerich and Mark Gordon is provided for the scenes as well. The deleted scenes are shown in high definition and some of them were well worth watching and added character depth to some of the minor characters from the film. The Cold Zone Game is a trivia game that can be played actively or passively. In other words, you play the game while watching the film or have the questions automatically answered. I'm not sure where the fun lies in having the questions answered automatically, but the choice was there. Two Theatrical Trailers, the promotional Fox on Blu-ray and D-Box functionality are provided.

Closing Comments:

"The Day After Tomorrow" is a visual and sonic affair that is very enjoyable during its first viewing for the sheer visuals and incredible sound effects. It is loud and aggressive. However, after you get past the big budget production values and in-your-face presentation, this is a terminally flawed film. The story is atrocious. There is little redeeming value to what occurs between the characters and I enjoyed the minor character Luther (Glenn Plummer) far more than any of the major characters. Most of them were boring and lifeless. The science depicted in "The Day After Tomorrow" is horrendous. It makes a mockery of anything discussed by Al Gore and only serves to capitalize on the momentum of the Global Warming discussion. This is a movie that is a treat to watch once for its incredible storm sequences. However, that is the only reason to watch the film. The Blu-ray release does a solid job of delivering the storm effects to the home theater with a top-notch DTS soundtrack and with above average visuals. The supplements show what Blu-ray is capable of and are perhaps more engrossing than the film itself.