Deep Impact Review
by Kevin Patterson (kevinp AT princeton DOT edu)June 3rd, 1998
Film review by Kevin Patterson
DEEP IMPACT
Rating: **1/2 (out of four)
PG-13, 1998
Directed by Mimi Leder.
Written by Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin.
Starring Tea Leoni, Morgan Freeman, Robert Duvall.
Since Hollywood has gone through tornadoes, volcanoes, sinking ships, and exploding buses in recent years, I suppose it was only natural that the realm of disaster movies would extend into the realm of destruction by space garbage before too long. Accordingly, this summer we get DEEP IMPACT, in which a 7-1/ 2-mile wide comet is on a collision course with Earth, and ARMAGEDDON, in which an asteroid the size of Texas is, well, on a collision course with Earth. The creative forces behind DEEP IMPACT have stressed that theirs is a film about how human relationships and decisions are affected by the possibly impending disaster, as opposed to the apparently more action-driven
ARMAGEDDON.
They are partly right. A team of astronauts, led by Capt. Sturgeon Tanner (Robert Duvall) is dispatched to destroy the comet, but I'd say that at least 70% of the movie takes place on Earth, where the President (Morgan Freeman) is trying to develop contingency plans in case the disaster can't be averted, among them a national lottery in which 1 million Americans are chosen to live underground for two years while the dust will settle. Meanwhile, we follow several other characters as they try to deal with the possibly impending destruction, such as the star reporter Jenny Lerner (Tea Leoni), who is still constantly struggling to get along with her father, and two teenage sweethearts, one of whom has been chosen in the lottery and the other who has not. The astronauts manage to break the comet into two pieces, leaving several possibilities: (a) no disaster will strike at all, if land-based missile defense systems can deflect the comet pieces; (b) the smaller piece will land in the ocean, causing 100-foot tidal waves to destroy shoreline areas but allowing most of the planet to survive; (c) both pieces hit the earth, wiping out all plant, animal, and human life. (Hint: which do you think would allow for both a happy ending and an extended special-effects destruction sequence?)
The problem is that the more action/disaster-oriented sequences are actually the ones that are the most effective. The astronauts' tense and ultimately botched comet-walk and the tidal wave's decapitation of the Statue of Liberty as it topples New York City skyscrapers pointedly illustrate the fragile nature of human existence, and the astronauts' painful goodbyes to their families via NASA satellite when they decide to make a last-ditch suicide run at the larger comet piece is heroic enough to jerk a few tears from the audience. But the only scene involving the drama unfolding on Earth that can match any of those mentioned above is the one in which armed military vehicles pour through suburban streets to escort one of the "chosen" families to the underground caves. The "impact" of the other moments of human drama is, I'm afraid to say, rather shallow.
Part of the reason for this is that there just a few too many things going on at once in DEEP IMPACT. Towards the beginning, it almost seems like it's going to turn into a black-comic media satire. When the President first breaks the news about the comet, for example, we see a TV newsroom where reporters are scrambling and shouting things like, "Where the hell is the Science Division?" and "Does anyone know how big the one was that killed the dinosaurs?" Meanwhile, one of the two teenagers, who helped to discover the comet, is encouraged by a classmate, "You're going to have a lot more sex now that you're famous. That's the best reason to be famous, you know."
This angle soon fades into the background, however, and once the inital comet- walk is over, the screenplay's focus shifts to the quandaries of the various characters. Unfortunately, the film doesn't spend enough time to develop them in much depth and just skips to the crying scenes. We appreciate these scenes intellectually, but we don't really feel for the characters because we don't know them very well. James Cameron, in writing and directing TITANIC, knew that the audience needed to get to know his characters as normal people before he sent them running down corridors filled with freezing water. In DEEP IMPACT, we see the teenagers discovering the comet and pondering their future in light of the lottery, and we see Leoni, who has also been selected, trying one last time to reconcile with her possibly doomed father and delivering news reports about the comet, but we never see how they would behave in everyday situations.
The plot, meanwhile, is a bit skimpy, and as a result it has holes big enough for a 7-1/2-mile wide comet to fly through. I'm still not sure what was the point of a car accident which occurred at the start of the movie: we are led to believe that important information about the comet was lost in the crash, but later we learn that it was recovered completely intact. Also, why wouldn't the world's governments build more than one spaceship in case the first crew's mission failed? I realize it's expensive, but even Washington budget-cutters could probably be convinced to spare a few bucks for averting the end of the world. And why didn't the astronauts land on the comet more than an hour before sunrise would turn the thing into an outer-space mine field? The script also leaves some plot points unclear, such as what exactly is the problem with the missile defense, and whether or not the President had intended to take a spot in the underground bunkers.
Perhaps the biggest sin of DEEP IMPACT, however, is that it pulls some of its punches. There are reports of street fighting in Russia, and it looks towards the end as if a neighborhood has been looted, but we never actually see any of this happen. At the end, the President tells us that "millions have been lost," but rather than show us the aftermath of the devastation, Leder decides to give us some applause and flag-waving at the President's promise of rebuilding and renewal. I had hoped the film might examine some of these issues more directly, particularly given the screenplay credit to Michael Tolkin, who showed in his 1991 film THE RAPTURE that he has a pretty good idea how crazy some people can get when they think the end of the world is right around the corner. DEEP IMPACT, however, seems content to show us news reports of pre-apocalyptic hysteria rather than the real thing.
DEEP IMPACT makes a noble effort at telling a more human story than most big- budget Hollywood disaster flicks, and for that it is to be commended. What it would be like if a comet really was about to hit the earth, however, remains to be seen. Or filmed, as the case may be.
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