Deep Impact Review
by "David Wilcock" (david DOT wilcock AT btinternet DOT com)May 22nd, 1998
DEEP IMPACT
Review by David Wilcock (C)1998
(DREAMWORKS SKG)
RUNNING TIME: 2 HOURS
STARRING ROBERT DUVALL, TEA LEONI AND ELIJAH WOOD
DIRECTED BY MIMI LEDER
The first of the two asteroid movies coming out this year (the second is the macho Armageddon) is actually a dull affair. Elijah Wood plays Leo Biederman, who during Astronomy class discovers that a large asteroid is heading for earth. Tea Leoni plays a (rather crap) news reporter, Jenny Lerner, who soon discovers about this asteroid through a very long winded and boring way, and Robert Duvall plays the leader of a space crew, Spurgeon Tanner, who are planning to blow the asteroid out of the path of Earth. Also featuring is Morgan Freeman as the President, and Maximilian Schell and Vanessa Redgrave as Jenny's father and mother.
While many people will walk into the film expecting a big special effects fest with the asteroid blowing everything up (as the trailers seem to promise), the film is actually more of a character study, if a very poor one.
The main problem is that there are too many characters in the film, and not enough time to explore them all. Only the space crew are given any depth, Jenny Lerner, Leo and the president are surprisingly 2D, and we never get to know these characters. And because I couldn't care for them, I didn't really give a crap if the asteroid killed them or not. The script by Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin is horribly simple, and never really makes any interesting statements.
Mimi Leder, the former ER director and director of the average The Peacemaker (1996), again directs in a ho-hum style, and never really gets any emotion out of a scene, which is a shame. The cast are seemingly on autopilot, although Tea Leoni does gives a rather good performance, even if she acts a bit too dorky for her own good. She seems uncommonly stupid for a journalist. Robert Duvall is on autopilot with a underwritten role, he just seems to be in this film for the money. Elijah Wood, one of the best child actors working today, is surprisingly average, although his choice of roles lately haven't exactly been brilliant (i.e. Flipper, 1996). His role is also vastly underwritten. Morgan Freeman, again, is utterly wasted with a ridiculously underwritten role. Like Duvall, he just seems to be in the film for the money. The supporting cast are all O.K, none making much of an impression.
OK, so Deep Impact may have messed up character wise, but surely the special effects are good? Well, yes and no. Although the special effects should be impressive, with a massive tidal wave destroying New York, the special effects look like, well, special effects. Sadly, the waves looks like it's been drawn on computer, and doesn't look too good at all. Surprising really, when the effects are done by Industrial Light & Magic, who did the effects for The Lost World and Twister.
In the end, Deep Impact is a wasted opportunity. What could of been a moving movie with good effects turns out to be a dud in both characters and effects. The 2 hours the film had could have been used to much greater effect. Once again, Dreamworks has churned out another average movie. Let's hope Armageddon is a bit better.
OVERALL RATING= ** OUT OF *****
REVIEW BY DAVID WILCOCK
WEB SPACE PROVIDED BY GEOCITIES
DAVID WILCOCK
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