Subject: Review: Deep Impact (1998)

From: "Ted Prigge" <[email-masked]>
Date: 10 Jul 1998 15:56:42 GMT

DEEP IMPACT (1998)
A Film Review by Ted Prigge
Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge

Director: Mimi Leder
Writers: Bruce Joe Rubin and Michael Tolkin
Starring: Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Morgan Freeman, Robert Duvall, Maximilian
Schell, Vanessa Redgrave, Leelee Sobieski, Ron Eldard, Mary McCormack,
Blair Underwood, Jon Favreau, Laura Innes, Rya Kihlstedt, Richard Schiff,
Betsy Brantley, Derek de Lint, Kurtwood Smith, James Cromwell, Charles
Martin Smith

With "Deep Impact," what you really have is not only a return-to-form for
the "Disaster" Films, which at best were suspense films centered around the
various people involved (my personal favorite is the Steve McQueen/Paul
Newman/William Holden/O.J. Simpson epic, "The Towering Inferno"), but also
a little bit of optimism for future disaster films.  After all, haven't we
been bombarded with the most inane disaster films as of late (such as
"Twister" and "Volcano," neither which had one interesting character)?  We
sure have, and if anything, "Deep Impact" is a nice try at being something
great, as well as a big fresh of air from seeing way too many big special
effects become the forefront in films.

"Deep Impact" is the first of the two comets-heading-directly-for-earth
arriving in theaters this summer (the other being "Armageddon," which is
frantically trying to make itself look more human), but the focus isn't
even really on the comet itself - it's on the people involved.  After all,
if a comet was to strike earth, this would really make up for about five to
ten minutes of cool special effects when the comet actually hits, and
perhaps about ten to fifteen minutes of other special effects when the
astronaut team tries to blow it up.  There's a whole lot of filling time in
there, and "Deep Impact" figures that it shouldn't be about the comet
itself but rather its impact on the people it will affect.

The film begins with the discovery of the comet, and quickly establishes
the measures taken by political offices around the world to deal with it. 
They decide to send a Russian-American team of astronauts/miners to land on
the comet, plant a couple bombs, and then set it off months before it hits
earth.  Of course, there's a back-up plan, which involves randomly
selecting a certain amount of people to live in a cave for a couple years
until the dust settles and they can try and repopulate the world (a plan
which was thought up in none other than "Dr. Strangelove").  This is all
very scary, and luckily, it's handled that way, almost in the same scary
way that "Outbreak" dealt with the blocking off of the town so that the
virus did not escape.

But this is not the real focus of the film: it's main point is to show you
the various people it affects, and so we can see a wide variety of people,
it choses three chief groups.  We have Leo Beiderman (Elijah Wood), who was
the kid who discovered the comet during a meeting of "The Astronomers
Club," and who has to deal with the fact that he may not be able to bring
his girlfriend (Leelee Sobieski) along to live in the caves, and if he may,
she may not go because her parents may not be able to come along.  There's
also Jenny Lerner (Téa Leoni, who has a very cute neurotic quality), a
rising MSNBC anchor (giving the station the most press it has ever had) who
not only tries to uncover the comet story when it's still off-grounds to
the public, but who finds she has to deal with her feelings for her father
(Oscar-winner Maximilian Schell) when he decides to remarry a younger woman
instead of getting back together with her mother (Vanessa Redgrave).

And we also have the story of the astronauts/miners who are landing on the
comet, led by the aging Spurgeon "Fish" Tanner (Robert Duvall, hot once
again off his performance in "The Apostle") after an accident with the
other leader (Ron Eldard).  As "Armageddom" is making these people the
focus of its film, "Deep Impact" makes them an equal to the other two
stories, and tries to flesh out their lives to show the pain of having to
perhaps be a martyr (one astronaut, played by Mary McCormack, wryly says
"If we do this, they'll name high schools after us").

And at the head of it all is the President, played with dignity and grace
by Morgan Freeman, who is so good in the role that I'd probably vote for
him if he ran in a couple years.  Unfortunately very little is done with
his character, and one early scene involving him actually harms his persona
from that point on, even if in all reality it was only a hoax (you have to
see it to understand what I mean).

I've been hearing lots of people complaining about the hokiness that this
film has, how all of its characters are stereotypes or paper thin, and
partially these people are right.  This film is corny, and no character is
fully fleshed out enough to truly and deeply associate with them.  Then
again, the same thing could be said about "Titanic," which featured two
romantic leads who were hardly fully-realized people (she's rich and he's
poor, and they love eachother...that's about it).  But like I said with
that film, stereotyping and not fully developing characters actually helps
here.  The people in this film are broad generalizations that only help us
to feel for them more and find ourselves in them.  We can all (hopefully)
associate with Leo when he's worried about parting with his beloved
girlfriend, because, hey, we wouldn't want to leave her behind either.  And
we can all associate with Jenny, because we've all had a grudge against
someone that we fear we may have to fess up to if something like this comes
along.  If these people were more complex, we'd not be able to really find
ourselves in them, because the more complex a person is and the more we
know about them, the less we can say "Yeah, the same thing happens to me
too!" and since that's what this film's big strength is, I can't say it's a
big flaw.

"Deep Impact" has many many many problems, so many that a big list could be
made of them (every twist in the story happens so the conclusion can
happen, what's up with Charles Martin Smith being killed for no reason in
the beginning, why deal with the cover-up of the comet when it really has
nothing to do with the rest of the film, not enough Vanessa Redgrave or
Maxmilian Schell to really feel for them completely, how come Elijah can
easily climb that mountain, etc, etc, etc.), but if I were to make a list
of them and take off points for every thing that went wrong with this film,
I'd really be cheating you out of a review.  If anything, the real problem
with the film is it puts too much into its conclusion and not enough into
its exposition.  But "Deep Impact" is, after all, more of a sign of
optimism for future films than a really great film.  With this and
"Titanic," we see Hollywood is changing for the better, and that future
films won't be as soulless as, say, "Godzilla" or "Twister."  We can expect
better characters, more interesting plotlines, and much more.

If you're having trouble seeing past the cliches, then think of that scene
where you see the big tidal wave towards the end about to come down on two
main characters, you don't think "Wow!  What a cool effect!," but instead
think "Oh shit, that wave is going to kill them!"  I could easily point out
that this scene is cheap because one character had to kill themself to put
them there, and that it looks fake, and a couple other things to demean it.
 But I'd be lying if I didn't say that I cared.

MY RATING (out of 4): ***

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