There could be something more exhilarating to look at than Hollywood being ripped apart by tornadoes. No, really -- there could be. We just can't think of anything.

Tornadoes in Los Angeles, huge hail stones in Tokyo, a tidal wave in New York -- it's all part of the fun in The Day After Tomorrow, a disaster epic that is to film what Classics Comics Illustrated is to literature. Large type. Big pictures.

A special-effects extravaganza about a catastrophic modern ice age, The Day After Tomorrow is completely and unabashedly a B-movie, and a terrific B-movie at that.

Like its ancestors (Towering Inferno, Earthquake) The Day After Tomorrow involves a big cast, dodgy science, heinous dialogue, wooden acting, extraneous romance, dubious events, grim determination! and some apocalypse-induced philosophical discourse. Well, not really. But they are spectacular disaster effects.

The story stalls from time to time -- mostly over the usual pesky attempts at narrative or character development -- but the thrill aspect never wanes.

Here's the story: Dennis Quaid plays a scientist who warns the world that big weather trouble is coming, the world doesn't listen, and caramba! That's about it.

Sela Ward is Quaid's wife, Jake Gyllenhaal is his son, Ian Holm plays a Scottish scientist. Just to move the tension up a bit, Gyllenhaal and his high-school buddies require rescuing from Manhattan. But all of New York is awash in rapidly-freezing water!!! What to do!!!

Can dad/scientist Dennis Quaid find a way?!!!

Oh, boy. Even though Canada bites the bullet early on in the global destruction, being so northerly and all, the country remains represented: Kenneth Welsh plays the U.S. Vice-President and you'll glimpse Chuck Shamata, Mimi Kuzyk, Sheila McCarthy and other true north types wandering in and out of the story.

The Day After Tomorrow has some very amusing political elements, particularly when Americans are evacuated to Mexico and Mexico closes her borders to the onslaught of unwelcome immigrants. There are a couple of intentional jokes in the movie and plenty of other inadvertently hilarious material, so there's more going on than just jaw-dropping cataclysmic activity. But not much.

Did we mention the pack of starving wolves?

N.B. Parents: This film contains the stuff of nightmares for children younger than about 11 or 12.

(This film is rated PG)

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