Big Picture Big Sound

The Film

Hollywood has long had a fascination with films that deal with pseudoscientific doomsday scenarios. Whenever I see the trailers for these films, I can't help but start to hear the first movement of Mahler's Sixth Symphony in my head, for some reason -- that menacing sense of doom, the "Tragic".  These films always seem to be focused on the destruction of New York City, or Los Angeles; every so often they'll throw in a Washington, D.C. or maybe London for good measure. Why is it that we never see someplace like, oh, I don't know, Puerto Rico or San Diego being devastated? Nothing against any of those places, of course, but it would at least add a little variety into the mix.

My point is, however, that whenever these films come around there's always a sense that we've seen it all too many times before. So, The Day After Tomorrow stepped into the fray to posit its doomsday scenario in which the world (with the focus squarely on New York City, of course) is devastated by a super-storm brought on by global warming that hurls the planet into an instant ice age due to the entry of too much fresh water into the North Atlantic Current. Oh, um, never mind the fact that geologists will tell you we're actually still in an ice age; this is Hollywood after all.

Dennis Quaid plays climatologist Jack Hall who sounds the alarm to the politicians about the coming disaster, but no one will listen to him until the planet is already in the throes of irrevocable change. When the super-storm hits, Jack's son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his classmates end up stranded in Manhattan, trapped in the public library, as the sea rushes over the island. Jack then enlists the help of his colleagues and walks from the West Coast all the way to New York to save his son. While jack battles the treacherous temperatures, frozen terrain, and onslaught of the super-storm, Sam and his classmates Laura Chapman (Emmy Rossum) and Brian Parks (Arjay Smith) battle to stay alive with the help of acquaintances from the library, by burning books and living off of food from vending machines.

Though the film's many scientific weaknesses abound, the filmmakers do a good job making you feel invested in the fortunes of these people. Watching Jack Hall -- portrayed wonderfully by Dennis Quaid -- risk everything to save his son is quite moving. Of course, the visual effects are what this film is all about and they hardly disappoint. Apart from some obviously fake animatronic gray wolves, the special effects are stunning. From the pelting hail to the rushing Atlantic flooding Manhattan, the visual effects team earned their salary on this film and saved it from being quite mundane.

The Picture

The Day After Tomorrow appears on this BD in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 in an AVC/MPEG-4 1080/24p video encoding, and Fox has done a wonderful job bringing this title to Blu-ray. The impeccably clean source has been handled with the utmost care showing neither a blemish nor an artifact. The film's color palette, mostly an intentionally gloomy, bluish cast, is rendered flawlessly. Blacks are like coal and shadow detail remains intact. There is a fine level of detail in both close-ups and long shots and the film's natural grain is preserved in a consistent and unobtrusive manner.  In brighter scenes, colors are heavily saturated and flesh tones tend to suffer a bit, displaying some red push and looking less than natural, but the skin textures save the day; they are well defined. The high level of resolution does tend to expose the visual effects somewhat, particularly in the film's opening scene in the Arctic, but it is a minimal occurrence. This is reference material all around.

The Sound

The Day After Tomorrow comes with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless mix in addition to Dolby Digital 5.1 French and Spanish dubs.  The lossless option is a spectacular example of sound design translated for the home theater. From the very opening moments of the film the listener is enveloped in a total 360-degree sound field. The discrete sounds of cracking ice plates, booming thunder and relentless rain and hail come at you from all around, all beefed up with rumbling low frequencies via the LFE channel. Dialogue is full and natural in the center channel and mixed with an ample amount of ambient effects into the remaining four channels to give the entire mix a cohesive sound. If there is one fault of this otherwise brilliant mix it is that in a few of the most boisterous scenes the dialogue tended to get buried just a bit beneath all the sound effects, but it happened so infrequently it is not enough to warrant a demerit.

The Extras

The supplemental material on this release are quite barebones and hardly add much value to the release. There are two dull and intrusive audio commentaries, a pop-up trivia track and two somewhat useless "interactive" features that I fathom hardly anyone will use.

The extras available on this release are:

• Commentary by director/co-writer Roland Emmerich and producer Mark Gordon -- Of the two audio commentaries, this is the most worthless. Director Roland Emmerich's constant joking around as the film progresses is annoying, intrusive, and not particularly humorous either.
• Commentary by co-writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff, cinematographer Ueli Steiger, editor David Brenner and production designer Barry Chusid -- This audio commentary, though informative, is boringly meticulous and bogged down in far too much minutia of filming.
• Deleted Scenes with optional commentary by director/co-writer Roland Emmerich and producer Mark Gordon (2.35:1/standard definition) -- This is about 15-minutes worth of delteded footage that doent;s add much to the film.
  
• Global Warming Trivia Track -- This in-movie pop-up trivia track will display factoids about the environment, endangered species, hurricanes, etc. in relation to the film.
• Global Warming Interactive Game -- BD-Java game; play along during the film and answer questions related to gloabal warming.
  
• Search Content -- Allows you to search the film and go to specific scenes by using keywords
• Personal Scene Selection -- Save your favorite scenes using your remote's colored buttons and access them here.
• D-Box Motion Code -- For those of you with D-Box enabled home theater setups, this disc is D-Box enabled, so you can feel every rumble and every explosion in your seats for a more inclusive experience.

Where to Buy

• The Day After Tomrrow on Blu-ray Disc (Amazon.com)

Final Thoughts

This is a special effects extravaganza with a reference quality lossless soundtrack and video transfer that will definitely show off your home theater system. If you're looking for some entertaining action-filled drama to pass the time with on a weekend, then this Blu-ray release will fit the bill.

Product Details

• Actors: Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emmy Rossum
• Director: Roland Emmerich
• Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Subtitled
• Audio/Languages: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 French & Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, Cantonese, Korean
• Region: A
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: PG-13
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• Blu-ray Disc Release Date: October 2, 2007
• List Price: $39.98
• Extras:
  
• Commentary by Director/Co-Writer Roland Emmerich and Producer Mark Gordon
• Commentary by Co-Writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Director of Photography Ueli Steiger, Film Editor David Brenner and Film Production Designer Barry Chusid
• Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary by Director/Co-Writer Roland Emmerich and Producer Mark Gordon
• Global Warming Trivia Track
• Search Content
• Personal Scene Selections
• Global Warming Interactive Game
• Enhanced for D-Box Motion Control Sytems
• Theatrical Trailer