The Day After Tomorrow DVD Review:

As tornados tear through Los Angeles, hailstones the size of footballs pummel Tokyo and it snows for the first time in New Deli, climatologists Jack Hall (Quaid) in Washington D.C. and Professor Terry Rapson (Holm) in Scotland, make an alarming discovery. This isn’t just a series of freak metrological events but the start of something that could change the world forever. For the first time in 10,000 years a super-storm is going to plunge the Earth into a new ice age.

If you want to make a disaster movie based on the effects of extreme climate change due to global warming there is only one man to go to, Roland Emmerich.

The master of disaster brings us his best and biggest event movie yet. This is a director who loves to destroy cites, especially American metropolises, and put the world in cataclysmic danger but The Day After Tomorrow is different, this time the villain is nature itself. There are no aliens to attack or giant lizards stomping buildings to the ground, just a wounded climate reacting to years of pollution and environmental change in spectacular fashion.

The wizards behind the special effects have a field day, producing some of the most devastating phenomena that nature could unleash. You sit in awe as tornados rip through the L.A. skyline and your jaw drops as a giant wall of water heads for New York. These scenes of destruction are some of the best ever created and the highlights of the movie. Emmerich uses close and long shots with frightening effect as we see the destruction tearing through the cites from above and then we are taken to ground level to witness the human perspective as the extreme weather roars on.

Mixed in the all the devastation is a story of human survival. You realise very early on that this isn’t going to be your typical disaster movie where America and its gung-ho heroes save the day by averting the coming Armageddon at the last possible moment. This is an event that cannot be stopped so the story becomes one of despair and realisation. This means characters die and the peril and foreboding is very real.

The cast do a very good job at conveying this. The very underrated Dennis Quaid plays the obsessive scientist Jack Hall very well. He has an old fashioned, slightly iconic leading man quality in a similar way to actors like disaster movie veterans Steve McQueen, Charlton Heston or Gene Hackman and this lends itself well to the genre. Jake Gyllenhaal continues live up to his reputation as one of the best upcoming actors in the business with another good performance as Sam Hall. This character could have so easily have been an annoying teen heartthrob who you are meant to believe is extremely intelligent but even thought it might start off looking that way, Gyllenhaal’s performance soon puts any of these fears to rest. He is supported well by the beautiful Emmy Rossum as love interest Laura and Arjay Smith as the geeky Brian. Sela Ward is also good but slightly underused as Lucy Hall, Jack’s wife and Sam’s mother. Ian Holm brings some class to the proceedings and Kenneth Welsh plays the real villain of the piece, the sceptical, non-environmentalist Vice President.

The movie does have its problems however. Because of the grandeur of the situation, the development of the characters does suffer because of this. Why are Sam’s grades and interest in school dipping, where were Lucy’s patient’s parents and why most of the characters with exception of the main family so unconcerned about their own relatives or friends? The film also needed a few more hysterical, panic-stricken people to make the situation more believeable. Also why do we always only get to see the American cites been destroyed. Director Roland Emmerich has now ruined New York three times, isn’t it about time he took a bash at another city. We only get told that Europe is been covered with ice and that Australia was consumed by the Pacific, it would have been nice to have seen some of this, even if it was only after shots.

This aside, The Day After Tomorrow is still a very entertaining distaster movie with a social message attached. As climatologists speculate that this could actually happen, but just not as fast, the film does make you more aware of Global Warming issues and the current environmental policies of world governments, especially the US. The film might not totally blow you totally away but it gives it a very good try.

Star Rating = * * *

PICTURE & SOUND

Presented in Widescreen 2.35:1 Anamorphic with a choice between Dolby Digital 5.1 and dts soundtracks, the transfer is extremely good. The picture quality is superb through, bringing the storm to life before your eyes. The sound quality is also first rate, throwing you into the eye of the storm, so to speak. The inclusion of a dts sound track is also a much welcome bonus.

BONUS FEATURES

Disc One

Commentary by director/co-writer Roland Emmerich and producer Mark Gordon

This is a chatty and informative track from two people who are passionate about the project. The pair talks about the technical aspects of the movie, revealing many secrets about the production. They reveal that most of the film was shot in Montreal, with the Canadian city doubling for most of the locations in the film, also they disclose when scenes where removed or altered and what those scenes were actually like. This is a fine example of how a commentary track should be, two people talking enthusiastically about something they spent many years of their lives working on.

Commentary by co-writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff, cinematographer Ueli Steiger, editor David Brenner and production designer Barry Chusid

A more technical orientated but still chatty commentary from the crew of the movie. Co-writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff makes most of the conversation as he talks avidly about his script and the characters. The crew talk about how the shots where constructed revealing that many scenes ended up on the editor’s floor and how real shots were combined with CG to produce the stunning visual effects. Again this is another fine example of a very informative commentary by people who know a lot about the film making process.

Inside Look

Go behind the scenes of the creature effects for the upcoming movie Aliens vs. Predator.

Trailers

Previews for I, Robot, Garfield: The Movie and The Simpson’s on DVD

Disc Two

Inside The Day After Tomorrow

Pre-production

Previsualisation (5.08 mins)

Visual effects supervisor Karen Goulekas takes you behind the scenes of the storyboard and pre-vis processes used to block out the special effects sequences for the movie. This mini-featurette also includes comparisons between the final shots and the pre-vis computer mock ups.

Pre-Production Meeting (6.45 mins)

On November 2nd 2002, director Roland Emmerich and his crew got together to discuss how they are make the movie, mapping out the technical aspects of the shoot. This gives you an interesting insight into how a production gets started.

Storyboard Gallery

A montage of twelve storyboards from the biggest scenes in the movie and some deleted scenes.

Concept Art Gallery

Your chance to see concept art for the beach house, chopper, diner, ice shelf, India, I.S.S., LA Tornado, Library, Mall, Mexico, Natural History, N.O.A.A., New York City schematics, Tokyo, United Nations and the wolves.

Production

Eye of the Storm: Filming The Day After Tomorrow (1hr 08.44 mins)

Director Roland Emmerich, producer Mark Gordon, co-writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff, visual effects supervisor Karen Goulekas, production designer Barry Chusid, director of photography Ueli Steiger, special effects supervisor Neil Corbould and stars Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sela Ward, Glen Plummer, Austin Nichols, Arjay Smith and Emmy Rossum take you behind the scenes of The Day After Tomorrow. Starting on the first day of production, 7th November 2002, this documentary covers the entire filming process. Here we find out how the production made the Montreal look like LA, New York, Tokyo and India. We also discover how the many special effects shots were created, both digitally and in real life, including the use of fake snow, weathering of the many sets and how they created fake snow fall on the real Mexican border. This is a fascinating documentary that covers every aspect of the production process. It shows you how much work goes into a huge movie like The Day After Tomorrow.

Post Production

Pushing the Envelope: Visual Effects (31.34 mins)

Director Roland Emmerich, visual effects supervisor Karen Goulekas and the members of the various special effects houses that were involved with the production talk about creating the 416 visual effects shots created for the movie. The featurette covers the creation of the opening ice sheet, the super storm cell, the LA Tornados, the helicopter crash, New York City storm tide, the wolves, the big freeze and the computer recreation of New York. This is a very interesting insight into how different FX Houses come together to produce the large amount of shots needed for a film of this magnitude.

Deleted Scenes (17.40 mins)

With optional commentary by director/co-writer Roland Emmerich and producer Mark Gordon, these ten deleted or extended scenes entitled “Scene 21: Kids Study”, “Scene 25: Gary’s shady deal/Taka dies”, “Scenes 9-19 Hurricane Hunter/Kona Beach”, “Scene 58A: Gary vs. Foster”, “Scene 59: Tommy’s big break”, “Scene 100-103: Stock Market Crash”, “Scene 156: Ask Mexico for help”, “Scene 207A: Campbell & Co, last exit to Brooklyn”, “Scene 200-206: Wolf Chase Part 2” and “Scene 209-210B: First version of Jack and Jason after Big Freeze” do add a bit more to the movie but the director and producer explain why they were removed.

Scoring (10.15 mins)

Go behind the scenes with composer Harald Kloser at the recording the score at the Newman Stage in LA. Here we hear the orchestra playing the music that accompanies the wolves sequence, the end of the storm, the big freeze and the freezing of New York City.

Audio Anatomy (1.44 mins)

This interactive special feature allows you to listen to each sound element that combines to make Helicopter crash scene so spectacular.

The Science of Tomorrow

The Force of Destiny: The Science and Politics of Climate Change (1hr 00.22 mins)

Director/co-writer Roland Emmerich, co-writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff, producer Mark Gordon and numerous scientists and climate experts discuss the effect humans are having on the planet. This documentary looks at the devastating effect that the burning of fossil fuels and population is having on the climate. Split into sections, the filmmakers and experts explain what is happening to the planet, showing evidence from Ice core samples, the increase in weather related phenomena such as forest fires, ice melting and flash floods. The documentary also reveals that the US contributes 25% of the world’s greenhouse gases, with India and China the next biggest contributors and none of them making any roads to reduce their outputs. Succeeding in raising awareness of environmental issues and pointing out that the movie is an extreme version of what could happen, this is a very informative documentary that accompanies the movie extremely well.

Global Watch

Read about different weather patterns such as floods, tornadoes, storms, hail and other anomalies.

City Freeze

You chance to see artistic impression of what major cities around the world like London, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin and Moscow, would look like if a new ice age did happen.

OVERALL

Fox have done it again with another fabulous DVD treatment for one of their big summer blockbusters. The bonus material is first rate, with two extremely good commentary tracks and a plethora of behind the scenes material that covers every aspect of the production of the movie. The inclusion of an informative documentary only adds to the value. Couple all of this together with a superb picture transfer and the inclusion of a dts track and you have another example of how a DVD should be produced.

DVD Star Rating = * * * *

Jamie Kelwick

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