The Day After Tomorrow
The Day After Tomorrow (opened in theaters May 28, 2004) is an apocalyptic science fiction film by Roland Emmerich, starring Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal and Sela Ward. The film aims to dramatically depict catastrophic effects of global warming. The movie is based on the book The Coming Global Superstorm, a work of fact and fiction. Members of environmental groups are trying to bring attention to the reality of global warming by informing movie-goers with pamphlets and urging them to sign petitions.
The movie is based on the idea that an ocean current that supplies warm water to the Northern Hemisphere is disrupted by the melting of the ice caps. This means a severe change in climate for the Earth. At first the predictions are that this will take some six to eight weeks to take affect but then three massive storms appear across the globe. This combine over the space of a week to form a huge planet wide storm. The eye of the storms are able to suck extremely cold air from the upper atmosphere to the ground causing flash freezing to anything caught in it.
The story follows Dennis Quaid's character, who is a paleoclimatologist, predicting that this is taking place, though he expects it to happen much more slowly. His son, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, is in New York City attending a scholastic competition. He becomes trapped in a Public library with about half a dozen people including a girl that he has a crush on played by Sela Ward, after massive flooding engulfs the city.
Quaid decides to trek across the frozen tundra that the United States has become in order to save his son. At the same time a mass evacuation of the southern United States is in progress. Mexico closes the border for a brief time until the President agrees to forgive all Latin American debt. Quaid finally reaches New York and finds that his son and the rest of their group have survived. The movie ends with people emerging onto the roofs of skyscrapers to be rescued.