THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (2004)

Paleoclimatologist Dennis Quaid has a bad feeling about global warming. He spends a lot of time attending conferences and trying to warn people that the human race is eventually gonna get wiped out by a new ice age. But even paleoclimatologist Dennis Quaid can't predict that it's gonna to happen...the day after tomorrow! Yikes!

Even worse than the world ending the day after tomorrow is paleoclimatologist Dennis Quaid's son, Jake Gyllenhaal, is in NYC for a school activity and he hasn't had a chance to knock boots with supersexy Emmy Rossum yet. Ohhh, the humanity! Is there no God?!!! Multiple hailstorms, tornadoes, tidal waves, supercooled superstorms and wolf attacks later Jake is trapped in NYC and it's up to paleoclimatologist Dennis Quaid to come save him.

And, of course, he does. Oops! Did I ruin the ending for you? I'm sorry. One of the things that gets old in these disaster movies is no matter what, no matter even if you have a superstorm the size of Australia breathing right down your neck, the hero always seems to live through it all with only a few scratches to show for their troubles. I guess that's what's expected, but still it'd be nice if every once and awhile some of the main characters died.

Still, despite the we've-seen-this-shit-a-million-times-before script THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW is entertaining. The CG destruction looks nice, the pace is quick, Jake Gyllenhaal proves that even with a lame script he's still a good actor, Emmy Rossum's smile created such a warming glow in my loins that it could've thawed out a woolly mammoth's carcass from 60 paces, ice age-proof wolves, paleoclimatologist Dennis Quaid, that guy from "Riptide" as the President, Ian Holm's in a role that is beneath his talents and a completely unexpected Friedrich Nietzsche reference...wow.

Recommended for fans of cheesy disaster movies...like me.  I cannot get enough of these things.

SOURCE CODE (2011)

The last thing Army helicopter pilot Jake Gyllenhaal remembers is being on a mission in the Middle East. Suddenly he wakes up on a commuter train in America and there's some hot chick sitting across from him talking about life and shit. He understandably freaks out. Then the train blows the fuck up and he instantly wakes up in a strange pod like thing that kinda looks like a cockpit. A woman in military clothing appears on a screen and starts asking him about the details of the mission. Jake has no idea what the f is going on and she explains to him that he is on a mission to identify the person who planted a bomb on a train this morning, in order to prevent an even larger explosion that is going to maybe happen very soon. With this in mind Jake is thrust back into the mission over and over while at the same time trying to figure out what exactly is happening to him. Most likely you've already guessed the twist ending and you would be correct. The "twist" is about as shocking as when George Michael announced that he was gay.

I saw SOURCE CODE at the theater, but when I sat down earlier to rewatch it for this review I couldn't even remember what it was about. Director Duncan Jones seems to be a mildly talented young director, good at creating interesting visuals but I wish he would really try to beef up his character development skills. Both this film and MOON had very interesting premises and visually looked really good, but both films lacked the kind of strong character investment of say the films of Stanley Kubrick.

Worth watching, but after the initial viewing I cannot imagine wanting to watch it over and over.