The Day After Tomorrow features

Features	Example
Focus Group	Members of a Scholastic Decathlon team - Brian, Sam and Laura - went to Manhattan in New York and were trapped in a library with a large number of New York citizens who later decided to brace the cold and get out of the city, which killed them off, leaving us with a smaller focus group in the public library. Jack, Sam's dad, and two of his crew/friends set off to find Sam, creating another focus group because they leave the other workmen.
Romantic Attachment	From the start of the movie they establish romantic attachment between a lot of characters - Sam and Laura, J.D and Laura, Jason and Janet, and Jack and Lucy.
Hero	Someone who manages to overcome the disaster that has occurred and save a small group of people, in this case the hero is Sam's dad, Jack, who faces the cold in order to save his son and the people that he's with.
Villain	In this film, the villain is the Vice President of the United States of America, who refuses to listen to and belive what Jack has to say, and is very against having people migrating south because all he worries about is the economy, not what's best for the human race. In the end, he realises the error of his ways.
Sacrafice	When a character sacrafices themself to save a group of people, in this film Jack, Jason and Frank were walking to Manhattan to find Sam, connected to one another by rope, when Frank stood on a plate of glass which broke and he fell into a shopping mall. The rest of the glass began to break because of the weight, and to save Jason and Jack, Frank cut the rope, sending him down to his death and sacraficing himself for the safety of Jack and Jason.
Kids	The use of children to add drama, because you want the child to survive. In The Day After Tomorrow, there was a sick young boy named Peter, and he couldn't be moved from the hospital unless it was by Ambulance, and all the Abumlances had been evacuated which created tension.
Foreshadowing	Often during the opening scene, the disaster in the film is foreshadowed. In The Day After Tomorrow, in the opening scene we see Jack, Jason and Frank drilling in Antarctica when an ice shelf breaks off, foreshadowing what's going to happen.