The Day After Tomorrow Blu-ray delivers stunning video and audio in this excellent Blu-ray release
The entire Northern Hemisphere endures a storm that triggers the onset of a new Ice Age. A climatologist and a small band of survivors try to stay alive.
For more about The Day After Tomorrow and the The Day After Tomorrow Blu-ray release, see the The Day After Tomorrow Blu-ray Review published by PeteR on October 29, 2007 where this Blu-ray release scored 4.0 out of 5.
In Antarctica, Dr. Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) and his team are drilling ice cores when the Larsen Ice
Shelf breaks off beneath their feet. Alarmed by this and the evidence his core samples present, Hall
attempts to warn government officials that the planet is about to undergo a dramatic shift in
climate. Unfortunately, he is too late. Hail consisting of giant ice cause chaos in Tokyo; Los Angeles
is devastated by a flurry of tornadoes; and giant hurricane-like disturbances sweep down from the
Arctic. New York City is deluged by a giant storm surge, where Jack's son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaall), is
attending an academic contest. After briefing the highest levels of the United States Government,
Jack and a small team set out to rescue Sam, trapped by a building winter storm that will plunge
the planet into another Ice Age.
...and now to Brock with today's sports....
Much has been made about the science, or lack thereof, in this film. However, if you can believe a
stone ring can propel people thousands of light years across space, a Macintosh laptop can bring
down a vastly superior alien intelligence, or French nuclear tests can spawn a giant lizard that can
outrun Apache helicopters, then the leaps in logic presented here won't prevent you from enjoying
this film. The Day After Tomorrow is pure popcorn entertainment, even if you have the
feeling the filmmakers were trying to make a statement. The cast: Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaall,
Sela Ward, and Emmy Rossum give decent performances. Unfortunately, the characters barely
register long enough for you to root for them. Like any disaster film, the real star here is the visual
effects, some of which are stunning.
Bottom line, if you try to approach the film as serious entertainment you're bound to be
disappointed. If you look at it as a genre movie in the same vein as The Poseidon
Adventure, Earthquake, or The Towering Inferno, it succeeds.
Fox has encoded The Day After Tomorrow in 1080p MPEG4 AVC. The results are
outstanding, but just short of the best demo material. The video is clean with good color and
sharpness without edge enhancement. However, the image is missing the depth and dimensionality
of the best HD presentations. This isn't the fault of the transfer or encoding since the film was
heavily processed and the disc faithfully represents what I saw theatrically. With so much violent
weather it's hard to say what is intentional and what isn't. What may be codec/transfer related is a
bit of what looks like video noise that creeps into some scenes. The opening flyover in Antarctica,
fully CGI, reveals some what appears to be static just below the horizon line. This isn't an issue with
most of the film though. Quibbles aside, this is still a very, very good high definition experience.
Textures and things like tiny bits of snow are easily resolved. The amount of detail in the effects
sequences is amazing and will help keep the film from aging prematurely like several other CGI-
based features of the past 10 years. Just go to the L.A. tornado sequence to get an idea what I'm
talking about: I saw debris and other items I hadn't noticed before, not even in the theater. This
makes the Blu-ray an appreciable upgrade over the DVD version.
Note: this disc is encoded with 5.1 DTS-Master Audio, since I am using the Sony PlayStation 3 as
my playback unit only the lossy core 1.5Mbps DTS is currently available to me.
Even without access to the full lossless audio track, The Day After Tomorrow is quite an
experience. Stargate, ID4, Godzilla...all of Emmerich's films have been a
terrific sonic demo and this film tops them all. Dynamic range is powerful, the many storm
sequences give all 6 speakers a workout. You really feel immersed by the soundtrack. This film is
not meant for a cheap home theater in a box! Again, the L.A. tornado sequence is prime demo
material, with the sounds of destruction occuring wherever you turn your ear. With a good
subwoofer, when the building shakes, so will yours!
The soundtrack is also available in French and Spanish in Dolby Digital 5.1 @ 448kbps. Note to Fox:
Blu-ray supports the full Dolby Digital 640kbps bitrate!
Compared to the offerings of other studios, the extras included here are a bit sparse, and what is
included basically replicates the first disc of the fully loaded Special Edition DVD set.
Disappointing...but at least it's a bit more than what was included on previous Fox catalog
releases. A nice surprise is that all video based supplements are presented in full 1080p video (no
upconversion) and are in good shape.
All video extras are encoded with MPEG4 AVC in with either Dolby Digital (DD) 2.0 @ 224kbps or
5.1 @ 448kbps.
Commentaries:
Commentary by Director /Co-Writer Roland Emmerich and Producer Mark Gordon
(feature length, DD 2.0): Both participants talk throughout the film but not too much can be
gleaned from it: a lot of "that's a great shot" or "remember how we did this?" Gordon, at least, is
the more animated of the two. Commentary By Co-Writer Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Director of Photography Ueli Steiger, Film
Editor David Brenner and Film Production Designer Barry Chusid (feature length, DD 2.0): A
bit more interesting than the first track, the participants give a more nuts-and-bolts description of
the film, though (forgive me), it's impossible to remember who is who unless they are discussing
their specific contribution.
Video Supplements:
Deleted Scenes with optional commentary by Emmerich and Gordon
(0:18:35 total, DD 2.0): 10 deleted and extended scenes and sequences cut either for time or
story pacing. With the possible exception of the "Hurricane Hunter" sequence, I agree with their
deletion.
Theatrical Trailer (various, DD 5.1): Both the famous teaser and the final
theatrical trailer.
Fox On Blu-ray (0:08:10 total, DD 5.1): HD trailers for Alien vs.
Predator, Fantastic Four, Planet of the Apes, X-MEN: The Last
Stand available now from Fox on Blu-ray Disc.
Global Warming Trivia Track (feature length): Subtitle based pop up trivia
and information about climate change. Those of you with smaller screens may have problems
reading the text.
Java features:
Personal Scene Selections: During the film, pressing "1" on the remote
bookmarks the selected chapter for later playback. Same as the feature in Fantastic Four:
Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Search Content: Brings up a menu with various characters and topics
from "Airplane" to "Zoo". Selecting a topic brings up a listing of all the times they appear in the
film and plays the relevant clip.
Cold Zone Game: Trivia question game where you answer 50 questions
about climate change. Get a question wrong or take too long to answer and the temperature
goes up. Go over 85 degrees and you lose. To get a leg up, I suggest watching the Global
Warming Trivia Track first.
A very good video transfer and an excellent audio track makes The Day After Tomorrow a
solid but imperfect addition to my Blu-ray library. Recommended to the fan of the disaster movie
genre or home theater buff. Turn off your brain and enjoy.
Reviewer's Note: I tried playing this and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver
Surfer on my Windows Vista Ultimate PC with PowerDVD Ultra 7.3. At first the program
wouldn't play the disc at all, then an update appeared on site. Downloaded the update, the
application starts but all I get is a blank screen. Reinstalling from scratch did not help. Looks like
BD+ and PCs don't get along very well, at least for now. Those of you playing via Media Center PCs
take note.
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