First, the unbelievably successful writer/director obliterated the city and its inhabitants with alien weaponry in the silly sci-fi mish-mash “Independence Day.” Then, only a few short years later, he unleashed Tokyo’s very own scaly menace Godzilla on the unsuspecting populace. Now he turns the full fury of Mother Nature herself against the Big Apple, the giant metropolis buried under tidal waves, blizzards and air so cold it turns the citizenry into life-size human ice cubes.

My gut tells me this is one man who’s not getting the key to the city any time soon.

All kidding aside, Emmerich isn’t a subtle director. He loves to blow things up, whether they be heads (“The Patriot”), temples (“Stargate”) or, in the case of his latest effort “The Day After Tomorrow,” the entire Northern Hemisphere. Wind swirls pictorially into shimmering vortexes of majestic terror, snow falls like daggers, mountain sides tumble with Wagnerian wrath and people are frozen, impaled, smashed, drowned and catapulted into deathly submission. It is a beautifully rendered, large-scale motion picture full of epic swagger showcasing sights and sounds seldom seen in a movie theater.

It also stinks to high heaven, and enduring this piece of cinematic hokum is akin to eating seven month old Easter Eggs: They may look pretty, but they’ll sure as heck give you food poisoning.

So does this. Not since Irwin Allen hit his nadir with, um, classics (strictly of the “Mystery Science 3000” variety) like “The Swarm” and “Earthquake” has there been a disaster flick quite as silly and inane as this. And, much like those, there is much campy goodness to be found amidst all the mediocrity, an extremely talented cast floundering helplessly amidst the clichés, stupidity and highly stilted melodrama.

As in all disaster movies, there is always the single Everyman who just knows things aren’t right and, gosh darn it all, if people only would just listen to him before it is too late he’s positive he could save the day. This time, that man is government climatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid, “Innerspace”). He’s come to the conclusion that all those pesky ozone emissions and greenhouse gases we’ve been foolishly emitting the last few decades are slowly melting the polar ice caps, their super-cold drippings irreversibly changing the temperatures of the Earth’s ocean currents. If things don’t change, the planet could be in for a second Ice Age.

Of course he’s right, and no one, including the Vice President of the United States, wants to listen to him about it, especially when he radically suggests evacuating the entire northern half of the country. Soon New York is flooding and Canada has turned into a giant frozen icebox, and wouldn’t you know it but Jack’s own son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal, “The Good Girl”) is trapped with a few hundred other Apple-tonians in the central library. As the city slowly turns into a frozen wonderland, Jack manages to tell his son to stay put and keep warm for he’s coming to save him, and Ice Age or not there is no way he’s going to let his son turn into frost-covered Popsicle.

This is an idiot movie made by people with the wealth of six Donald Trumps at their disposal. In fact, if you happen to be a sadomasochist who gets off on watching beautifully rendered scenes of destruction, than by all means “The Day After Tomorrow” is just the ticket for you. The effects here are every bit as startling and overwhelming as the trailers promised. Just when you think Emmerich and his team of technicians can’t top themselves, they then go and turn the greatest tidal wave in motion picture history against the city of New York.

In all honesty, these moments do have a trenchant power. That flooding, in particular, is awe-inspiring. Scenes of waves flowing serpent-like through the crowded city streets are shockingly effective, wrenching the gut like a jackhammer. I particularly liked the way they crashed and smashed up against the Statue of Liberty before making their way into the city itself. It’s a terrifying sequence, a startling reminder of the very type of spectacle Hollywood can excel at and brings home the fury of a mad-as-hell Mother Nature.

But so what? “The Day After Tomorrow” is such a mess of cliché and unintentional hilarity it’s impossible to care about the characters or their plight. The director, along with co-screenwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff (“Hollywood Palms”), have constructed a farce of a disaster flick that leaves no long-lasting staple of the genre unturned. Want some marauding beasts to terrorize the heroes? Why not a pack of laughably CGI-generated wolves inexplicably able to escape from the Central Park Zoo. Need a child stoically facing death? Then how about a Leukemia patient (who just happens to be going blind) unintentionally left behind by the hospital staff with only Doctor – and Jack’s ex-wife – Lucy Hall (Sela Ward, “The Fugitive”) remaining at his bedside. Need romance? Your fix is the giddily asinine misty-eyed affair between Sam and fellow classmate Laura (Emmy Rossum, “Mystic River”), one in which the young hero will have to – gasp! – consider amputating his beloved’s leg.

Speaking of those CGI wolves, when will filmmakers get it through their thick skulls that just because a computer allows you to do something, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should? While computer effects technology is undeniably impressive – those panoramic scenes of Lady Liberty underneath ice and snow are incredible – that still doesn’t mean they’re effective, especially where it comes to bringing animals to life. They look glossy and fake, more suited to a computer game or a cartoon. The wolves’ first appearance onscreen sent the preview audience into fits of laughter, and Sam’s running from them only made things worse. These canines are a needless addition to an already laborious film, superfluous and obviously phony much like everything else surrounding them.

Poor Dennis Quaid, just as soon as you thought the actor was solidifying his comeback now he has to wipe the muck of this mess off. Long a favorite of mine (I could watch “The Big Easy” and “Innerspace” until the cows come home), it was hard to believe the actor would ever have another heyday after bombing out in film after film in the ‘90’s. But after daringly distinct turns in “Frequency,” “The Rookie,” “Traffic” and, especially, “Far From Heaven,” I was sure he was about to enter a new golden age. But now, with the failure of “The Alamo” and the absurdly turgid silliness of this picture, Quaid finds himself once more in trouble and I just don’t see that pearly 100-watt smile digging him out.