Deep Impact Review
by Justin Felix (jfelix AT kent DOT edu)May 11th, 1998
DEEP IMPACT (1998)
A "Turkey of the Week" film review by Justin Felix.
Copyright 1998 Justin Felix.
Rating: *** (out of five)
Written by Michael Tolkin and Bruce Joel Rubin.
Directed by Mimi Leder.
Starring Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximilian Schell, Morgan Freeman.
Rated PG-13 (contains violence and profanity) approx. 110 mins.
Synopsis: An annoying, alcoholic reporter for MSNBC stumbles upon the biggest story of the century: a giant comet is on a collision-course for Earth. A crew of astronauts attempt to blow up the comet with nuclear devices but only manage to split the comet in two. A salvo of nuclear weapons, a massive underground shelter, and the astronauts' desperate second plan become man's only hope for survival.
Comments: Judging from DEEP IMPACT's previews, I expected the worse. With syrupy phrases bandied about like "oceans rise," "cities fall," and "hope survives," along with a melodramatic score in the background and a rather cheesy image of a tidal wave knocking buildings over in New York City, the movie did not seem promising. Add to this the fact that another high-profile summer flick, ARMAGEDDON, deals with basically the same topic -- Hollywood has a hard time coming up with respectable disaster movies in pairs (as the recent volcano and earthquake debacles illustrate). I was, however, somewhat surprised by DEEP IMPACT's strengths. Instead of a turkey, it's a better-than-average TV mini-series with a bloated 75 million dollar budget and a shorter running time.
Those 75 million bucks seemed well-spent, surprisingly. The special effects in DEEP IMPACT are very noteworthy (quite a feat considering the countless movies Hollywood releases now which are predominantly effects-driven). Nothing shown in this movie, to further the surprise, is particularly new or innovative. People flee in vain through a crowded New York City street, for example, with a giant tidal wave smashing buildings and consuming cars behind them, a scene almost stolen from INDEPENDENCE DAY (same city, similar street -- only, in ID4, it was fire rather than water). Similar destruction, both in cities and in the countryside, have been seen in many other recent natural disaster flicks. VOLCANO, DAYLIGHT, and DANTE'S PEAK come to mind. This doesn't, however, lessen the impact that such images of destruction has on the audience (no pun intended). Though highly unrealistic, the outer space sequences are also visually stunning, perhaps the best in the film.
Whatever was left over in the budget after the special effects was still well-spent. DEEP IMPACT sports a very solid, respectable cast. Robert Duvall and Morgan Freeman give the most notable performances. Duvall, fresh off of his Academy Award-nominated work on THE APOSTLE, pulls at the heartstrings as an aging astronaut named Spurgeon Tanner. Tanner, an experienced navigator and recent widower, overcomes the age discrimination of his much younger crew to become a leader and a hero convincingly. Morgan Freeman's always powerful presence lends credence to his job playing the President of the U.S. Screen vets Maximilian Schell and Vanessa Redgrave play the divorced parents of the reporter who breaks the story very well. The reporter, Jenny Lerner, played by Tea Leoni, is the only casting misfire here. Leoni is wooden and unconvincing throughout; she lacks charm, and many of her scenes are hollow and unsatisfying. As one of the major characters in the movie, this is a striking fault.
Another fault, admirable as it may be, is that DEEP IMPACT attempts too much. I made a comparison earlier between this film and a TV mini-series. DEEP IMPACT needs four or six hours to satisfactorily tell its tale. The story takes place over the course of a couple of years and involves a great many characters. We see the President and the government, the news media, the astronauts of the space shuttle "Messiah," and numerous everyday, middle-class, mostly white Americans. Many of these characters are complex and fascinating, yet not enough time is spent on them. In order to be more in-depth in a 2 hour movie, perhaps the screenwriters could have concentrated upon one group of characters. My vote would have gone to the "Messiah." The astronauts are uniformly interesting; all have families on Earth (so we still would have a tie to the Earth); and, their sacrifices are some of the most memorable in the movie. We don't see them in training; they're just introduced suddenly, given a party, and launched into space.
Focusing upon the astronauts would have also saved the audience from sentimentally absurd scenes involving the middle-class, suburban, American characters. As primarily a disaster film (one could legitimately argue this is science fiction as well), DEEP IMPACT follows some of the cliches which appear in other movies of this genre. We have pregnant women, parents who sacrifice themselves for their children, and despicable characters who turn over new leaves in order to become heroes. Thankfully, a dog doesn't play a prominent role here (dogs-in-jeopardy, a tired element seen in disaster epics like DAYLIGHT, etc.). Young love, however, does appear: the child who unknowingly discovers the comet falls in love, gets married to save his sweetheart (he's picked to go into the underground shelter; she is not), follows her as she decides to spend the apocalypse with her parents, and then finds her, somehow, just in time to witness the movie's climactic ending. Please. This was the most unlikely subplot of the film, and I, for one, did not buy it. Though, as my friend and I vacated the theater, I overheard two teenage girls talk about how they hadn't cried so much at a film in a long time. I guess it worked for some people.
Removing the plot from the critical equation (let's face it, most special-effects driven films ask you to swallow a lot that's unbelievable), DEEP IMPACT is an entertaining, diverting, early film for the Summer of 1998. This is a film to check out on the big screen. Rated PG-13, this film makes a pretty good matinee movie with little that would offend the audience. The rather convoluted storyline, though, may tax some children's understanding and patience.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
