Let the word ring out, over flash-frozen cities and monsoon-covered mountains: the king of modern apocalypse movies is back, and in top form. Roland Emmerich, who turned alien invasions into giddy entertainment in the mid-90's with Independence Day, has reached once again into the deep recesses of our collective apprehension, this time emerging with an unlikely winner of a subject. Any class of high school sophomores will tell you that global warming isn't the most mesmerizing of lecture topics. In Emmerich's escapist fantasy THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, however, ecological damage is extrapolated into a global catastrophe as chillingly scary as it is tremendously entertaining. If this movie doesn't scare you into environmental awareness, I can't imagine what would.

Emmerich is a master of apocalyptic imagery, understanding the unlikely symbiosis inherent in the genre: a grand scale that nevertheless has foreboding shadows at its edges, the incongruity of unexpected turns that are telegraphed by bombastic minor-chord music. It is epic, but specific; grandiose, but with pinpoint accuracy. In THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, Emmerich uses Mother Nature, in all of her immensity and ferocity, to channel this cinematic Mobius Strip: mammoth ice floes cracking in half, hailstones bigger than softballs, swarms of frenzied birds frantically heading south. Where Independence Day utilized the shadows of alien space ships to fill its audience with dread, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW uses cloudbanks: dark, powerful, imposing, unpredictable. Is it ingeniously simple...weather is, after all, the chaos of giants, the whims of God played on magnificent widescreen display. Cameron may have more imagination and Spielberg more finesse, but Emmerich stands alone in his grand understanding of what makes humanity tremble.

As he did in Independence Day, Emmerich realizes again that even an apocalypse needs a giggle now and then...this is summer escapist fare, 'natch, and constant capricious destruction can eventually become tiring. There's savvy ecologically-minded political humor texturing the screenplay, including some rather hilarious digs at the Bush/Cheney Administration (who, to be fair, deserve it...they did unilaterally destroy the Kyoto Protocol a few years ago, a global treaty aimed at reducing the threat of global warming.) Emmerich doesn't stop at mere satire, however; having thought through the repercussions of a global climate change, he sagely critiques everything from immigration policy to Nietzsche. Some filmgoers might balk at the corny sentimentality of THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW's imperiled characters, but to do so is really missing the point. Yes, the sentiments are corny, but you know what? This isn't Howard's End. This is a disaster movie, with a tradition that stretches back past Independence Day to The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, Airport...or even further back, to King Kong. This is a film that remembers the thrills of cinema's splashy, cheesy action pictures of yore. THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW is serious, but it doesn't sacrifice the fun. More power to it, I say.

The far-flung family at the center of this drama includes Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), a climatologist who sees the warning signs early on. (What did I tell you about foreshadowing?) His physician wife, Lucy (Sela Ward), is more concerned about their son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), who is on a school trip to New York City, which seems to be right in the deadly storm's path. As the shifting weather patterns begin to wreak havoc across the globe, Jack embarks on a desperate attempt to rescue his son, with the help of his assistants Jason (Dash Mihok) and Frank (Jay O. Sanders). Quaid leads this ensemble with his signature rough-and-ready bravado; in his assured hands, Jack is revealed as a levelheaded man of science with panic resting just behind his eyes. The cast is packed with excellent character actors, unsung talents whose faces you will remember but whose names you've never heard: Tamlyn Tomita (The Joy Luck Club), Adrian Lester (Primary Colors), Nestor Serrano (Runaway Jury), and Kenneth Welsh (Miracle) as a dead ringer for Dick Cheney. The television actor Perry King (Riptide) ably stands in for the Prez, but it is Ian Holm (Lord of the Rings), in a small role as a Scottish meteorologist, who brings real resonance to the environmental and geopolitical forces swirling through the story.

But I can already hear you saying...who really cares? What we came for was the typhoons, the blizzards, the squadron of tornadoes decimating Los Angeles, and that tidal wave just off Manhattan's south shore. Without revealing any more, I say to you...rest easy. THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW doesn't scrimp one bit on visual effects or screen drama, giving nature a gorgeous CGI palate to do its worst. The vistas, both real and computer generated, are spectacular, and perfectly capture Emmerich's imaginative whimsy and fantasy. It is almost too easy to fall into this precisely-calibrated, panic-stricken world, and fans of the genre may never want to leave. THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW may not be a classic for the ages, but as a populist entertainment -- and one doing double duty as an ethical reminder about the sanctity of our planet -- it's as good as it gets.

-- Gabriel Shanks

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