Subject: Review: Deep Impact (1998)

From: "Chris T. Dias" <[email-masked]>
Date: 26 May 1998 04:26:07 GMT

DEEP IMPACT

STARRING: Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, Morgan Freeman, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave
WRITTEN BY: Michael Tolkin and Bruce Joel Rubin.
DIRECTED BY: Mimi Leder.
**OVERVIEW**

 Leo Biederman (Wood) studies the stars with his astronomy class.
During his studies, he discovers a small bright spot.  His teacher
sends it off to be studied.  He discovers that Leo has found a new
comet.  That, in of itself, is a career-making discovery.  It quickly
gets dashed when the astronomer realizes this comet is heading
directly for Earth.  But, as he leaves the tell the world, a runaway
semi mows down his Jeep, preventing the world from knowing of the
approaching comet.

 Fast-Forward one year later, with a major Clinton-esque controversy
arising.  The president just might be having an affair with woman
named in files simply as Ellie. Tea Leoni plays a reporter for MSNBC
who suspects there's more to the story of a cabinet official's
resignation.  She accuses him of having an affair with this woman and
he gets to say, "I know you're just a reporter, but you used to be a
person."

 Soon she discovers her error; he is resigning not because of Ellie
but because of an E.L.E., which is jargon for "Extinction Level
Event." He wants to spend more time with his family, and has stocked a
yacht with dozens of cases of vitamin-rich Ensure. He must not have
been invited to the briefing where it was explained that all surface
life would be destroyed by the comet, or the other briefing about the
1,000-foot-tall tidal wave. My guess is, the president wanted him out
of the Cabinet.

 The president, played convincingly by Morgan Freeman, goes on TV to
break the bad news to the world, and talks of the Messiah Project,
which will send a manned U.S.-Russian space craft to plant nuclear
bombs in the comet and blow it up. We meet the Messiah crewmembers,
including old Spurgeon Tanner (Robert Duvall), called out of
retirement because he once landed on the moon and might be able to
land on the comet.

 The younger crewmembers resent him, we are told, although dissension
onboard is never followed up on. The veteran has a nice line about the
youngsters: "They're not scared of dying.  They're just scared of
looking bad on TV."  There's another good line at the high school
assembly where the Leo who also discovered the comet is honored. A
friend tells him, "You're gonna have a lot more sex starting now.
Famous people always get more sex."

 So, within 30 minutes of the film, the Messiah is launched...and 40
minutes in the film, they bounce along the surface.  The first hour of
the film runs like wildfire.  By the end of the first hour, the
Messiah pulls away from the comet and attempts to destroy it.  The
plan fails and instead of shattering, the comet breaks in two small
parts.  The 1.5 mile splinter will smack the Atlantic and cannot be
avoided.  However, if the larger 7-mile long one hits, there goes all
life on the Earth.

 So, to make sure life will go on, each country is constructing
underground caves that a select few will live until the disaster
passes.  Then they will emerge to repopulate the globe.  A lottery
will be held and those lucky enough will be able live on.  The others
can only pray.  As the time ticks down, Earth holds its breath.

**REVIEW**

 Deep Impact could have been really bad...thankfully it wasn't.  It
takes itself very seriously and never tries to be campy.  It does this
by trying its best to make things believable.  This stems from making
the Messiah ship realistic.  It looks prefabricated, thrown together
quickly in a year with an engine system I actually read about many
years ago in a Carl Sagan book.  But before I started liking this
ship, the crew is on the comet, bouncing around 1/10 gravity and ready
to plant the bombs.  I wish this film was longer because then it would
allow us to enjoy the epic scale of this movie.  Instead it rushes
into its drama of who would live and who will die.

 And they do die.  There are four major character in Deep Impact:
Leoni, Duvall, Wood, Freemen.  Then there is about six to eight
characters surrounding each of them.  Of those 30 plus speaking parts,
about six survive.  Morgan Freemen's role, if replaced by a no name,
would be totally unimportant.  He is delegated to simply sitting in
front of a camera and reading off a teleprompter.  Easy job.

 The biggest role comes from Leoni and Duvall, two good actors in good
roles.  Obviously Duvall steals all his scenes and Leoni wasn't as bad
some made her out to be.  I couldn't find really any bad acting in the
film, so what's left is its effects and story.

 As for the story the film does teeter precariously on that tight rope
between ID4 and Mars attacks where there are four or five totally
different stories and you really only care about one or two,
everything else is just boring.  Luckily, Deep Impact only has three
major pots running and you like them all, even though the Messiah
mission was the leader for me.

 When the first comet strikes, the effects are startling, but
familiar.  The initial tidal wave is amazing and jaw dropping but when
it starts sweeping through Manhattan and Washington, its reminds me of
the fireball sequences in Independence Day with the cars flipping and
buildings falling.  The best of these is an underwater sequence of
Manhattan showing the head of the Statue of Liberty floating to the
bottom.

 Could Deep Impact be better?  Yeah...there were some strange actions
by some people and I think that some of the solutions people had to
some problems were tossed aside.  One example is that the President
announces they launched nukes to take out the big rocket but then
announces that they failed.  No effects, no suspense, like this plot
point was just tossed away.

 I liked Deep Impact.  It seems appealing to both disaster fans and
science fiction nuts.  I enjoyed it and the ending was very
satisfying.  As for that big rock...

 ...Well...I was sitting in my chair as Freemen announced the landing
site.  I mean here we are, in Prince George, high up, far in the
continent.  We should be okay.  Then he says the second big rock will
impact in Western Canada...Everyone in the audience just threw their
arms up, "Well, we're screwed!!"

PLUSES: +AMAZING SPECIAL EFFECTS
 +GOOD ACTING

MINUSES: -SOME PLOT HOLES

RATING:  * * * 1/2 STARS OUT OF FIVE

DEMOGRAPHIC: Deep impact has a high fatality rate but no one dies on
camera.  Millions die in the disaster but luckily, we don't see any.
Language is minor and film can be very downbeat in its climax.  Makes
you proud to be a human being.  Too bad there aren't any aliens to
blast away...

--
---  Chris T. Dias ---  "The man who runs with scissors."