The Day After Tomorrow
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: May 28, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
47
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
16
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
EmpireColin Kennedy
Everybody is good at one thing, they say; for Emmerich, it's destruction. Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
This highly entertaining spin on eco-catastrophe could turn the most meteorologically challenged among us into Weather Channel freaks. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterMichael Rechtshaffen
Despite the clunky bits, "Tomorrow" still manages to deliver the blockbuster goods. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Yes, the movie is profoundly silly. What surprised me is that it's also very scary. The special effects are on such an awesome scale that the movie works despite its cornball plotting. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The spectacle, which is colossal and at times staggering to behold, begins within two minutes of the fade-in and keeps coming until the finish. I thought I'd seen it all. I hadn't. Read full review
75
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
Better than his previous films, The Day After Tomorrow plays to Emmerich's strengths, making for a thrill ride that rarely disappoints when it matters. Read full review
70
VarietyTodd McCarthy
A disarmingly pulpy, eye-popping disaster movie during its first half, and an increasingly dull survival melodrama during its second. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Several of the special-effects sequences -- a Tokyo hailstorm, a system of tornadoes ripping through L.A. (and tearing up the Hollywood sign), a tidal wave breaking on the East Side and washing through the canyons of Manhattan -- are just dandy. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Emmerich’s sense of irony has rarely been so pointed, and The Day After Tomorrow, for all its obvious cataclysmic set-pieces and stock characterizations, is nothing if not timely. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
Delivers the expected thrills and groans. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The Day After Tomorrow is filled with bad dialogue, stock peril situations, and sketchy character development, but it's a big enough spectacle that those things don't completely derail the film's capacity to be enjoyed. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Never mind the cool, convincing effects (and they are cool), The Day After Tomorrow teems with illogical action, improbable coincidences. It's pure escapist fare, a popcorn gobbler. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
This often entertaining movie mixes grand, epic effects and amazing visualizations of catastrophe with a sappy family-in-crisis plot that would look hackneyed in a '60s Disney TV movie. Read full review
63
New York PostMegan Lehmann
Disaster movies, from "The Poseidon Adventure" to "Towering Inferno," are impossible to take seriously and "Day" is no exception - it's simply a fast-moving pageant of end-of-the-world eye candy. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
I'm not saying that a date with this picture is all pleasure; but it's not all guilt either. Read full review
63
PremiereAaron Hillis
The real top billing, what audience-goers are obviously shelling out to see, is the computer-generated chaos, and as they should: Digital technology has caught up with our collective imaginations Now More Than Ever. Read full review
60
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
The really good news is that the disaster money shots are some of the finest ever filmed. Read full review
60
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
It's the Weather Channel on steroids. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
A decent disaster pic comes down to the handful of colorful individuals who will live (or, depending on the prominence of their billing, die), as it has since the days of chewy disaster meatballs like ''The Towering Inferno'' and ''Earthquake.'' And the heaviest lifting in Emmerich's production falls to Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
What most hurts The Day After Tomorrow is its unfortunate, lecturing tone. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
All this amounts to a badly wasted opportunity, since global warming is a serious issue that deserves thoughtful treatment. So stay home and read a scientific journal instead. This is a disaster movie that lives up to its label. Read full review
50
USA TodayMike Clark
Packed with digs at Bush-Cheney that even Democrats could find heavy-handed, the movie's lumbering approach reminds us that, OK, Emmerich did "Independence Day" -- but also 1998's "Godzilla," which began sinking back into the sea in week two. Read full review
50
The New York TimesDana Stevens
The glacierization of half of the world's inhabited land is contemplated with barely a hint of horror. In fact, it looks kind of cool. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Really bad movies can be fun, and the dialogue here often attains a level of joyful inanity. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Emmerich does know his way around an action scene -- there's an exciting sequence in which Sam and his buddies run from wolves while looking for meds inside the huge ship that pulls up alongside the library. But he's a master of disaster with no people skills. The characters in The Day After Tomorrow are fantastically stupid. Read full review
50
Village VoiceDennis Lim
Needless to say, the movie fails as a cautionary tale. But it fulfills its summer air-conditioning duties with flippant ease, and its enjoyably cloddish attempts at political relevance add a fascinating layer of incongruity. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Seldom has grandeur struggled so mightily, and fruitlessly, with rampant goofiness.
40
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
The story is too silly, too woefully underwritten, to stake a claim on seriousness. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The generally competent B-list actors are hobbled by cliché-ridden dialogue but do their best to react in remotely plausible ways each time the script nails them with some new melodramatic contrivance. Read full review
40
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Despite the fact that The Day After Tomorrow is harnessed to the very real threat of global warming, it's still just a big, dumb movie, another Hollywood entertainment that, instead of tweaking and teasing our brains for fun, leaves us feeling thick and stupid. Read full review
40
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
Even by the standards of disaster movies, The Day After Tomorrow is irretrievably poor: a shambles of dud writing and dramatic inconsequence which left me determined to double my consumption of fossil fuels. [7 June 2004, p. 102]
40
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
While it's marvelously refreshing to observe Mother Nature obliterating L.A. and New York along with caricatures of ghastly world leaders, almost everything good is in the trailer, save perhaps brief run-ins with malevolent wolves and Ian Holm. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
An exceptionally stupid movie. Read full review
30
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Utterly shatters the illusion with a trite plot, banal dialogue, clunky sentimentality and, worst of all, a sort of narrative arbitrariness. Read full review
30
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Emmerich now directs entirely in watered-down Spielbergisms, and his storytelling skills, never strong, have gone slack. His talent for stretching a concept that can be described in 10 seconds into a feature-length movie, on the other hand, remains impressive. Read full review
30
SlateDavid Edelstein
When it comes to weaving personal stories in and out of the special-effects set pieces, the director has the most colossal antitalent since Ed Wood Jr. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
The catastrophe is so pulped and exaggerated that uninformed audiences will safely assume that global warming is just a Democratic scare tactic. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Don't ask whether or not you should take The Day After Tomorrow seriously. Don't take it at all. Read full review
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