The Day After Tomorrow

Director Roland Emmerich (who thrilled audiences with 1996's Independence Day) clearly delights in scenes of mass destruction. Artfully crafted, these successive calamities come one after another with but a handful of humorous moments to break the tension.

At the centre of the story is Jack Hall, a paleoclimatologist studying the effects of global warming. His chilling theories are ignored by government officials - a plot point that is all too common in such films - even as the world is ravaged by extreme weather conditions. And after the northern hemisphere is encircled by frigid storms, Hall must journey from Washington to New York to rescue his teenaged son, Sam.

Though such an Armageddon would take a couple of centuries to evolve (barring a shift of the earth's magnetic axis), the film compresses developments into just a few days. Thankfully, the scientific interpretations are presented clearly and logically without getting buried in technical jargon.

Like Independence Day, Emmerich (who co-wrote the screenplay with Jeffrey Nachmanoff) plunges headfirst into the storyline, and populates the film with an enormous number of characters. But they all react rather placidly to the shocking events, with little hysteria or emotion - their hearts seem as cold and unfeeling as the eventual all-consuming blizzard. With the shocking proceedings presented as more fun than grim, any sense of tragedy seems to have been sucked into an atmospheric vortex.

The first half of the film also seems disjointed, as if numerous consequential scenes were deleted in favour of a pointless subplot about a pediatric cancer patient. It is only once the glacial onslaught has begun that the story becomes dramatic and energized, with plenty of surprises and innovative scenes of suspense.

Dennis Quaid is believable and competent as the dedicated Hall, while Jake Gyllenhaal is charming as the determined Sam. Relative newcomer Emmy Rossum, as Sam's love interest, lights up the screen; this neophyte is a star in the making. (Watch for her later this year as Christine in the film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera.)

The Day After Tomorrow is a fascinating and refreshing film that does without the standard elements of most big-budget Hollywood productions. While it lacks the intensity and excitement of Independence Day, it is a tribute to man's will to survive, demonstrating how remarkably adaptive our species can be. Rating: 7 out of 10.