Deep Impact Review
by David Sunga (zookeeper AT criticzoo DOT com)May 11th, 1998
DEEP IMPACT (1998)
Rating: 2.0 stars (out of 4.0)
********************************
Key to rating system:
2.0 stars - Debatable
2.5 stars - Some people may like it
3.0 stars - I liked it
3.5 stars - I am biased in favor of the movie
4.0 stars - I felt the movie's impact personally or it stood out *********************************
A Movie Review by David Sunga
Directed by: Mimi Leder
Written by: Michael Tolkin and Bruce Joel Rubin
Starring: Tea Leoni, Elijah Wood, Robert Duvall
Ingredients:
Giant comet, lady reporter, boy teenager, old astronaut
Synopsis:
This human interest story features a big tidal wave in the last few minutes. There are three sets of main characters, each with their own issues:
1. A teenage boy named Leo (Elijah Wood) who has discovered a comet must find a way to proclaim his love to a girl.
2. An American lady reporter named Jenny (Tea Leoni) whose career was made by the comet story must get over her European father's remarriage. 3. A retired ace astronaut named Fish (Robert Duvall) must get his younger comrades to socially accept him as they fly a rocket to the comet.
Once the main characters definitively resolve these personal issues, they turn their main attention to the prospect of a giant comet hurtling towards the earth. Then comet gets focused on for a few last minutes and the movie ends with a presidential speech.
Opinion:
When disaster strikes in a 'disaster' movie, the injustice of it is that heroes are too young to die because they have big unresolved issues to deal with - - like redemption or finding a lost loved one. Then the catastrophe strikes them, making everything that much harder and more dramatic to deal with. This is the TITANIC formula.
On the other hand, suppose you have a disaster movie where the heroes have already finished finding their love or have already achieved redemption before the calamity even strikes. Then the subsequent disaster is merely academic, something entertaining and touristy to be viewed with no real emotional investment.
In DEEP IMPACT main characters wrestle their way through human dilemmas like teen love and dealing with divorce and finish up. The main focus on the comet appears at the end, rather extraneously, neither punctuating nor aggravating human issues that have already been solved adequately. In terms of drama, it's an add-on. And so, paradoxically, by the end of the movie the dramatic disaster angle neither impacts nor is deep. Decent acting and good special effects can be found here, but I think the script could be stronger if the issues were timed so that the comet impacted all of the main characters in a more physical way throughout the entire movie, rather than just at the ending.
On the other hand, DEEP IMPACT remains an adequate movie. It is well-acted, it entertains, and even amazes, despite its depersonalized disaster.
Reviewed by David Sunga
May 10, 1998
Copyright © 1998
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