ROLAND Emmerich has it in for New York. He had aliens wiping out chunks of the Big Apple in Independence Day and let Godzilla loose on Manhattan.

Now he outdoes Shakespeare's Prospero and Macbeth's witches in unleashing the mighty forces of nature - and a special effects army - that may alarm even the phlegmatic Michael Fish.

Emmerich speculates what would happen if global warming came to a peak in 2004, casting the world into the next Ice Age.

Film technology has moved on apace, and so indeed has global warming but not the United States' sense of responsibility for global environmental and climactic changes. Emmerich wants to provide a cautionary counter to all the American posturing.

This is the underlying theme of a blockbuster with more intelligence in its ideals than in what passes for dialogue in a story torn from the plot drafts of the disaster movies of the 1970s.

Emmerich builds his story around a few central relationships: father and son, boy and girl, doctor and six-year-old cancer patient, space and earth, science and nature, scientists and the President's administration.

They are but players on a bigger stage, howling in the wind as all the president's men mock the warning of climatologist Dennis Quaid, the Noah of the piece. Emmerich serves up just enough human interest, toys for his meteorological freak show.

He throws everything into the mix, kicking off with huge hailstones and dropping in the occasional shot of other parts of the world (Scotland, London, a Manchester United match on TV) while focusing on Hollywood's two centres of the Western world, Los Angles and New York.

Alas poor LA, it bites the dust first, victim of tornadoes that rip up the Hollywood sign and poleaxe the Capitol Records building. Onwards errant nature goes, and onwards Quaid travels, vowing to rescue his student son (cult Donnie Darko star Jake Gyllenhaal) from a submerged New York.

Here comes the next Ice Age, freezing over the earth, sending the President to a chilly death and forcing his replacement to broadcast on the Weather Channel and spout platitudes about appreciating the importance of the Third World.

Frankly the Die Hard franchise and first Men In Black movie had better scripts, and it is difficult not to snigger at the melodramatic tone and the howling wolves. However, if you enjoy America taking a bashing through computer-generated imagery, than The Day After Tomorrow will stay in the memory until... the day after tomorrow.

york twenty4seven view: 2/5

Updated: 09:20 Friday, May 28, 2004