Last night, after dinner, Andy declared that he wanted to see something “mindless and stupid.” So, fortified with a Mai Tai, I went to Specialty and rented “The Day After Tomorrow.” We were not disappointed as far as the mindlessness and stupidity goes.

Irwin Allen would be proud. It’s “The Towering Refrigerator,” only with much more expensive (and in most cases less convincing) special effects. Every cliche is trotted out again, including: the separated couple who must find their way back to Love and Respect, the brainy-yet-buff Geek Who Gets The Girl, and the Money-Mad Government Officials Who Won’t Listen Until It’s Too Late. There’s even Cancer Kid (a descendent of the girl in “Airport 79–The Concorde” who’s being flown to Paris for emergency heart surgery).

This film is the worst example I’ve yet seen of a Millenium Movie Disease I call Death By CG. Every visual effect is computer generated or enhanced. The worst symptom occurs when the world has been plunged into a deep freeze and THE ACTORS’ BREATHS ARE COMPUTER GENERATED. When Frank Capra made “Lost Horizon” and John Carpenter made “The Thing,” they both had the good sense to shoot on refrigerated soundstages to capture the authenticity of, well, being in the cold. Not this production. Whenever anyone exhales, it looks like an outtake from “Ghostbusters.”

Storywise it’s a very queer hybrid: a cautionary tale about global warming that was obviously made by conservatives. Imagine “The Day After” directed by Disney, perhaps. Too timid to show the reality of what would actually happen, especially to the survivors; whole plot complications jettisoned when they threaten to get too graphic or are no longer useful; and America still firmly on top at the end. And the film’s greatest moment of irony (white Americans fleeing to Mexico) is overplayed with ham-fisted heaviness. The actors have little to do other than look grim, stoic, or resigned.

And yet. Somehow it was still watchable. Why? Perhaps it’s the same reason that, despite “Fast Food Nation” and “Super Size Me,” McDonald’s still tastes good now and then.