Rent The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Disaster/Survival Film - Great Fun - The Day After Tomorrow review by GI

A fantastic, enjoyable apocalyptic disaster film where extreme weather events presage an ice age. Forget the science here because this is a piece of hokum but it's all done with panache and spectacular story telling making for a great survival adventure film. Dennis Quaid, a highly underrated American actor, plays climatologist Jack, who, whilst witnessing strange climate changes predicts that the Earth is about to undergo a major atmospheric climate shift. Of course all the politicians don't listen until massive tornados, huge hailstorms and tidal waves start happening. As the world begins to freeze over Jack and a couple of his compadres trek across the now frozen wastelands trying to reach his son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), who is trapped in New York with some of his student friends who have had adventures of their own trying to survive. There's some great CGI effects especially the various storm and weather events from the opening scenes of a huge break in an Antarctic ice shelf to the massive tornadoes devastating Los Angeles and the tidal wave that floods New York. Director Roland Emmerich has made a reputation for himself making these big budget effects film and this one just hits all the right notes especially with following various storylines from the students trapped in New York to Jack making his way to rescue them to a small group of scientists in Scotland trapped in their weather station (Ian Holm and Adrian Lester). If you've never seen this then I really recommend it, it's great fun, exciting and very well done.