Deep Impact Review
by James Brundage (brundage AT alltel DOT net)January 8th, 1999
Deep Impact
Directed by Mimi Leder (The Peacemaker)
Written by Bruce Joel Rubin (Jacob's Ladder) and Michael Tolkin (The Player)
Starring Robert Duvall (The Godfather), Tea Leoni (Bad Boys), Elijah Wood (The Faculty), Vanessa Redgrave (Celebrity), Morgan Freeman (The Shawshank Redemption), Ron Eldard (The Last Supper), Blair Underwood (Gattaca), Jon Favreau (Swingers), Maximillian Schell (Vampires), James Cromwell (Titanic)
As reviewed by James Brundage
As a country, we've seen it all for disaster movies. We've seen massive destruction of the world's cities by aliens (Independence Day). We've seen volcano's nix the small town and the big city (Dante's Peak and Volcano). We've seen New York's traffic jammed Holland Tunnel go out from under us (Daylight). We've seen ships go thrillingly awry in space … TWICE (Apollo 13 and 2001), and comically awry as well (Airplane II : The Sequel) And, of course, we've seen the worlds most revered ocean liner go down, letting 11 Oscars surface for old Jim (Titanic). And this summer, on the platter for the American cinema audience, we get to watch planet Earth get nuked, not by aliens, not by a giant monster (but we get to see New York City get trampled (Godzilla)!), but by asteroids.
As an action movie, having given away the majority of its plot twists in the promos, Deep Impact utterly fails. The writers, Michael Tolkin and Bruce Joel Rubin, veterans of thriller-dramas (The Player and Ghost, respectively), don't help, but the failure is due mostly to Mimi Leader, the "ER" vet who, when she shipped herself onto the big screen with The Peacemaker, started sinking her own career. She can't seem to actually thrill the audiences for more than a few quick seconds, which are few and far apart.
But, friends, it did not, like most of the B-rate disasters above (Titanic, Apollo 13, and 2001 as the exclusion), come out like something put through the grinder. The movie, through excellent writing and smart plot twists (in the characters), has a human element rarely seen in the Action genre. This is a great movie to take your kids too, totally appropriate for all ages, a good movie for anyone who likes a drama to see, and, if you kind of like drama and also like a few thrills but can't stand an all out rush, its worth it too.
Long winded at points as it may be, Deep Impact will probably the best done disaster movie of the year, and, as long as you can stand about two hours in the theatre with only about thirty minutes of action, then it is absolutely worth it.
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.
