The Day After Tomorrow [Blu-ray]

Director: Roland Emmerich Roland Emmerich

Overview

Directed by Roland Emmerich, this mega-budget, special-effects-laden epic revolves around the onset of an international series of crises brought on by the long-term results of the greenhouse effect. At the eye of the storm is paleoclimatologist (a professor dedicated to the study of weather patterns throughout the ages) Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), who voluntarily takes on the preservation of the world in the dawn of the next ice age and all the disaster that comes along with it -- violent hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tidal waves, massive floods, etc. Hall must also contact his son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), who was in the middle of an academic competition in New York City when the chaos begun. In addition to facing the largest-scale onslaught of natural catastrophes in the history of humankind, Jack, in his journey north, must contend with the masses fleeing south in an attempt to resettle in a warmer climate. The Day After Tomorrow also features Emmy Rossum, Sela Ward, and Joe Cobden.

Product Details

Release Date:	12/16/2008
UPC:	5039036032247
Original Release:	2004
Source:	Imports
Region Code:	2
Language:	English
Sales rank:	6,401

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

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
Richard McMillan	Dennis
Nassim Sharara	Saudi Delegate
Carl Alacchie	Venezuelan Delegate
Kenneth Walsh	Vice President Becker,Weather Channel Newscaster #1
Jared Harris	Actor
Kenneth Moskow	Bob
Glen Plummer	Luther
Adrian Lester	Simon
Kenny Moskow	Bob
Nestor Serrano	Gomez
John MacLaren	Veteran Scientist
Richard Zeman	Flight Director
Perry King	President Blake
Mimi Kuzyk	Secretary of State
Vitali Makarov	Yuri, Russian Astronaut
Russell Yuen	Hideki, Japanese Astronaut
Christopher Britton	Vorsteen
Christian Tessier	Aaron
Rick Hoffman	NY Businessman on Bus
Alan Fawcett	Commander Daniels
Sheila McCarthy	Judith
Amy Sloan	Elsa
Karen Glave	Maria
Joe Cobden	Zack
Caroline Keenan	Tina
Matt Adler	Truck Radio Announcer
Nobuya Shimamoto	Japanese Policeman
Robin Wilcock	Tony
Harald Kloser	Composer
Thomas Wander	Composer

Technical Credits

Roland Emmerich

Jeffrey Nachmanoff

Roland Emmerich	Director,Screenwriter,Producer,Executive Producer
Jeffrey Nachmanoff	Screenwriter
Kelly Van Horn	Executive Producer
Stephanie Germain	Executive Producer
Michael Kamper	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

The science behind this one may be a little shaky -- the possibility of a new Ice Age sweeping the planet overnight is pretty remote. But once you can get past the basic implausibility of the premise, you'll find that The Day After Tomorrow is, well, one of the coolest pictures to come along in quite a while. It's really a throwback to those great Irwin Allen disaster movies of the '60s and '70s. Allen's 1961 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, for example, took the opposite tack and posited that Earth's atmosphere could catch fire overnight. You take a group of people with disparate backgrounds, interests, and agendas; throw them together in a life-threatening situation caused by Mother Nature; and see how many of them survive to discover a means of reversing (or escaping) the effects of the calamity. In this case, climatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), having foretold the possibility of global warming suddenly triggering a new Ice Age, gets no satisfaction from seeing his prediction come true -- because his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is trapped in New York City, which has already been swamped by a tidal wave and essentially frozen solid. As the planetary freezing moves southward, Jack heads northward to rescue Sam and others that may have survived. Director Roland Emmerich, no stranger to such apocalyptic goings-on, marshals assistance from his art director, cinematographer, and special-effects team to make this frigid farrago convincing, and it's to his credit that he succeeds admirably. Formulaic plotting and stereotypical characters aside, The Day After Tomorrow, like Jack Hill himself, plots a course and doggedly pursues it to a successful conclusion. Although the submersion of Manhattan by tidal wave was done fairly convincingly in 1933's Deluge, that film's visuals don't begin to compare to the digital magic conjured up by Emmerich's special-effects sorcerers. There probably isn't a viewer on the planet -- in hot or cold climes -- that won't feel a chill up his or her spine when the Statue of Liberty is swept under by a monster tsunami. Quaid and Gyllenhaal are appropriately stolid in their roles and more than adequately supported by Ian Holm, Sela Ward, Jay O. Sanders, and others. Relative newcomer Emmy Rossum makes a strong showing as Jake's plucky companion and (if she lives through the ordeal) probable girlfriend. Providing old-fashioned thrills served up with new-fangled technology, The Day After Tomorrow makes an ideal "popcorn movie," and one that will certainly stand the test of time with repeat viewings.