Talented cast wasted amid disaster

Sweet mother of Christ does this movie suck. Not only does it suck, it can't even muster up a way to suck in a sporadically entertaining fashion. "The Day After Tomorrow," a flick purportedly about disasters, becomes engulfed by its own subject matter and transforms itself into something worse than anything seen onscreen.\nA horribly miscast Dennis Quaid (think "The Rookie" filling Jeff Goldblum's loafers) stars as Jack Hall, a scientist grappling with saving humanity from ludicrously abrupt global warming and the climatic calamities, e.g. hurricanes, tornados, tidal waves and a new age Ice Age, resulting. While doing so, he must also make amends with his family: an estranged doctor wife, Lucy (older hottie Sela Ward), and despondent teen-aged son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal, who at 23 is way too old to be playing 17). \nAs fascinating as this all sounds, it ain't. Sure, there are kinetic kicks to be had in seeing both the Hollywood sign and Capitol Records building blown to bits via a trio of tornados, but many (this critic included) feel la-la land had it coming … at least cinematically. The fun's done once New York City is assaulted and its citizens die in the most PG-13 ways imaginable. Haven't we seen NYC ravaged enough these past few years in reality? Society and the city itself have changed greatly since "Tomorrow" director Roland Emmerich last laid waste to it in "Independence Day."\nOther problems abound. Logic is thrown entirely out the window. Quaid and his climatologist cronies (Dash Mihok and Jay O. Sanders) trek from Washington D.C. to NYC by means both vehicular (How's a truck supposed to start in sub-Arctic conditions?) and podiatric (Wow, it's cool that these cats can walk a hundred-plus miles withstanding weather we've already seen kill the common folk!). \nThe inanities don't cease there: Gyllenhaal and his academic decathlon chums (Emmy Rossum and Arjay Smith) are permitted to travel from D.C. to NYC sans chaperone. I don't know about you folks, but this sort of thing wouldn't have flown at my high school. Why Emmerich and co-screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff didn't think to throw a teacher into the mix is beyond me. They could've made the character a massive asshole and killed him or her off with a gnarly tidal wave. Speaking of writing, the dialogue spoken here is tin-eared enough to make George Lucas blush. Last but certainly not least, this is a sci-fi film bereft of anything resembling actual science. Problematic? You bet.\nIronically, where "Tomorrow" succeeds and fails most is in its political leanings. The President (prime time soap and sitcom vet Perry King) and Vice President (Kenneth Welsh) are obviously George W. Bush and Dick Cheney knockoffs, so much so that the prez, upon entering the movie and being briefed as to what's going on, asks his underlings, "What should I do?" Later, Americans are seen illegally immigrating into Mexico -- a scenario that's equal parts funny and offensive. Obviously, this is a leftist film (Quaid's character hilariously drives a banana-colored Honda hybrid, while "Bush" dies offscreen in a Hummer), and that'd be fine if there were some substance to accompany the spectacle. There isn't.