The Day After Tomorrow Review

Hold on to your hats because the man behind "Independence Day" is back and this time it's not aliens blowing the world to smithereens but good old Mother Nature herself. Director Roland Emmerich really indulges his destructive bent this time around by plunging the world into a new ice age that has catastrophic climactic effects on us mere mortals. Dennis Quaid's paleo-climatologist is the geek with muscles who's been predicting the said climate shift, triggered, he argues, by global warming. But not even our heroic scientist realises that it's happening right under his very nose and after New York is hit by an enormous tidal wave and the whole northern hemisphere is threatened with a deadly freeze, it's his job to cross the icy wastes and rescue his son (Jake Gyllenhaal) who's holed up with a few other survivors in the Manhattan public library.

To put it simply, disaster movies don't come any better than this. From the deadly hail in Tokyo via the tornados in downtown L.A. and to the final super freeze, Emmerich has crafted a gasp-inducingly good ride that packs in every thrill you could desire. So, you want a nail-biting scene aboard a turbulence-hit aircraft? You've got it. The swamping of the Statue of Liberty or a finger-chewing cliff-edge rescue? They're both yours. And while there's some truly laughable lines - Quaid's straight-faced warning of the 'critical desalination process somewhere in the Atlantic' stands out - not to mention risible plot developments and a highly unlikely ending, you'll be having such a good time, it won't really matter. Unapologetically cheesy, eye-poppingly spectacular and seat-coweringly exciting, "The Day After Tomorrow" is simply great fun.