I agree with the review I read on IMDB that said the film is cliched and illogical...but the special effects and catastrophe that happens in the first hour make it worth seeing. I also agree with them, however, that the last half just looks like a survival film...like Irwin Allen's "The Poseidon Adventure" or "The Towering Inferno". This is especially because any pretense at making the story plausible seems to have vanished! So, New York City has zero power and has been innundated with walls of water...so why are the cell phones and pay phones STILL working? And, only a couple days after,it's so cold and frozen that wolves are running about NYC eating folks?? Huh? It just seemed like after a while, the writers were tossing anything into the mix...and I'm surprised they didn't introduce aliens like the Great Gazoo or Uncle Martin!

So, my advice is to go ahead and watch this spectacle film if you'd like...especially if you have a big screen TV. But don't think any of this is well written. It abounds with scientific nonsense and silly, one-dimensional characters doing the most ridiculous things!

Another lacklustre offering from Roland Emmerich, the German director who last scored with the ultimate Hollywood blockbuster cheese-fest, INDEPENDENCE DAY, in 1996. Since then we've had the abominable likes of GODZILLA and the Brit-bashing antics of the Mel Gibson starrer THE PATRIOT, but nothing that equalled the spectacle or splendour of Emmerich's earlier offerings. So comes THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, an unsurprisingly cheesy, and surprisingly disjointed, Hollywood effort that blows the bucks on special effects, and offers a sub-par script and a mindlessly derivative plot along with it. The film starts off well, with killer hailstones in Japan and tornadoes in LA, but after the first hour things fall apart so quickly that you're reminded of the game Jenga.

The film is chock full of plot holes and flaws, including scenes where Quaid impossibly treks across America and survives out in the storm, when even the Empire State Building falls (he's clearly stronger than a huge building) and a laughable interlude where our heroes must face down the most poorly animated killer wolves that I've ever witnessed; like the "superstorm" itself isn't bad enough! There's the usual combination of sorry sentiment and cheesy action, although the proceedings are bolstered by the appearance of Jake Gyllenhaal, although the proceedings are clearly below an actor of this calibre; give him something decent to work with next time! Ian Holm returns to the screen after a serious illness, and whilst I welcome the return of the actor, I'm sorry to say he's relegated to a minor role as a British weather expert (along with Adrian Lester) who disappears about halfway through, presumably dead.

The film works a lot like that. There are loads of loose ending and not much that ties up very well; it just kind of ends at an anti-climatic emotional moment that feels nothing like the adventure that has come before. So, then the reason to see this movie at all is obvious: the special effects. Sadly, some viewers (myself included) may feel cheated as all the 'best bits' are in the film's trailer. Shots of New York City being swamped by a massive tidal wave are excellent value for money, as are the flying buses, random pedestrian deaths, and the fearsome freezing ice which'll kill you in about five seconds if you're unlucky enough to get caught in it. So there you have it, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW: a disappointing adventure movie recalling the '70s disaster flicks, in which cliché rules the day.

I'm certainly in no position to comment on the science put forth in this film. When I was going to school, I remember being taught in science class that the Ice Age was a gradual process that took place over thousands of years and then it took thousands again to reverse it. Of course we didn't have man around using all the planet's resources for industry.

But scientist Dennis Quaid says that the Ice Age will dawn upon man again and soon. But it happens a whole lot sooner than even he predicts and the nations of the world pay for it.

The first half of the film is Quaid's struggle in vain to persuade our government, particularly a Vice President played by Kenneth Welsh who bears no accidental resemblance to Dick Chaney of the folly of its environmental policy.

When doomsday strikes, the action shifts to Quaid trekking to New York to rescue his son Jake Gyllenhaal who is trapped in the New York Public Library with other kids from an Academic Bowl they were participating in.

IF the science is open to speculation, the special effects are spectacular. Personally the sight of that freighter sailing up a flooded 42nd Street is something to behold. And the whiz kids who survive prove to be pretty resourceful.

The Day After Tomorrow is Hollywood's appeal for the USA to sign and obey the Kyoto Accords. Hollywood has taken up worse causes.