As with most blockbuster disaster movies, there isn’t a lot of scientific accuracy in _The Day After Tomorrow_. It’s much happier placing an emphasis on hand-wringing anticipation and large-scale destruction than minding the boring constraints of reality. I think audiences are happier that way, too. Let’s just get it out of the way, then: this is really dumb, its core message is pre-school simple and it’s not going to make sense when we poke and prod at the weirder bits. There. Now I can exhale.

What this leaves behind is a straightforward, ice-themed survival adventure on two fronts. We’ve got a group of teens, on a field trip to Manhattan, who get stranded in the public library during a deadly freeze. And then there’s a determined dad (coincidentally, also the only scientist on the planet who saw this coming) who bundles up tight and sets off on an expedition to bring the kids home safely. Hundreds of thousands die, shopping malls are buried under snow drifts, ocean liners run aground in Times Square and a pack of wolves escapes from the Central Park Zoo. All factor into their own obvious, self-explanatory set pieces. Well, maybe not the mass fatalities. Those just play as extra background color.

Honestly, as the genre goes, this isn’t such a bad example. It crams in all the expected CG shots (the New York tsunami and Los Angeles supertornado are especially memorable) and there’s a lot of stupid, manufactured suspense, but it knows when to show restraint and the character work is actually pretty strong. Four years removed from _Donnie Darko_, Jake Gyllenhaal was way too good for this kind of flick, but he doesn’t let that knowledge color his performance as the brainy, brooding young adult who’s accidentally shut in with his teen crush for the winter.

Not a good movie, not even close, but a decent enough spectacle and that’s all it intends to be. This might not be one of Roland Emmerich’s best, but it’s also a far, far cry from his worst.