Donald Trump enthusiast Dennis Quaid stars in this 2004 climate change disaster movie they should have called Cloudy with a Chance of Meatheads.

In hindsight it is ironic that Quaid should be involved in a production that would be shut down by the White House in the current climate. The film is explicit about the disastrous effects of burning fossil fuels, stark in its depiction of climate refugees, and weirdly successful in conveying the enormity of the crisis. And though it has all the attention to scientific detail of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Roland Emmerich may have done more for climate awareness than Al Gore. Let that sink in.

Emmerich achieves this through spectacular set pieces and epic CGI that still looks good 20 years later, all couched in the bland yet blockbuster-friendly story of a father’s love for his son (Jake Gyllenhaal) and American flags. But for all its hot (and cold) air, the extreme weather events are chillingly believable, especially compared to the wacky space disasters of later genre flicks like Geostorm or Moonfall.

This gives the film a real sense of peril, without disrupting the momentum through interpersonal conflict or human villains. After the usual dismissal of scientists at the start, everyone ends up fighting together for survival, and even the president (modelled on Dick Cheney) ultimately renounces fossil fuels. In a movie where people are literally chased by ice, the least realistic element is this public consensus and a president that takes global warming seriously. Now that’s terrifying.