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What can be expected from a film directed by Roland Emmerich? Well lets see, he assaulted New York City with Godzilla and destroyed Washington DC with an alien spaceship in Independence Day; so having most of the northern hemisphere destroyed by natural elements with the oncoming of the next ice-age seems perfectly appropriate for Emmerich’s new film The Day After Tomorrow. The cause of this cataclysmic event, as discovered by a paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), is global warming. As the ice at the North Pole melts it disrupts the warming channel flow of the oceans and brings about the next ice-age.

Usually scientists are depicted as nerds; however Jack Hall is a hero type who risks his life to rescue his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Sam’s love interest Laura (Emmy Rossum). Apparently, Jack feels guilty about the lack of time he has been spending with his son with all his trips to the Arctic and needs to make it up to him by saving him along with his friends from a snowbound Manhattan. Meanwhile, Sam and his school buddies are left to fend for themselves while they face extreme weather elements and a pack of hungry wolves. There is also a sub-plot about Jack’s wife Dr. Lucy Hall (Sela Ward), who is in charge of taking care of a cancer patient named Peter during the snowstorm. While Dennis Quaid and the other actors do an adequate job of delivering the flimsy dialogue, it is the awesome scenes that do the talking in this movie. With very little character development and paper-thin dialogue the viewer begins to care less about what happens to the characters and more about what grand catastrophe will occur next.

Well, this is the part that we’ve all been waiting for. Ever since the teaser trailer months ago, I’ve been replaying the images of tidal waves engulfing the island of Manhattan and huge tornadoes taking out Los Angeles skyscrapers in my mind. And let me tell you, these extreme weather phenomena along with softball size hail and hyper-cold winds that freeze everything they come across on the spot were the best part of the movie. The CGI and 3D effects look amazing on the big screen, making the somewhat outrageous scenes believable.

What can be said about a movie that is all effects with an obtuse plot and slightly tolerable acting? Well, if you are a fan of big effects, then this is definitely a film for you. However, through experience I have found that it is the films that have a great story and memorable acting performances that truly stand the test of time. Just before going to this movie I decided to watch Independence Day for a second time to get a better feel of Emmerich’s work, and my suspicions were confirmed. The effects were no longer revolutionary and thus less impressive, the dialogue was quirky at best, and the plot didn’t really make that much sense. The only thing that was notable about that movie was the performance of Will Smith. Unfortunately, The Day After Tomorrow doesn’t even have that to offer.