Subject: Review: Deep Impact (1998)

From: Michael Chen <[email-masked]>
Date: 10 Jul 1998 16:07:19 GMT

DEEP IMPACT (1998)

Film Review by Michael Chen

Rating: *½ (out of ****)
Rating: 3.4 (out of 10)
Director: Mimi Leder
Starring: Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave,
Morgan Freeman
Screenplay by: Bruce Joel Rubin, Michael Tolkin
Duration: 120 minutes

There’re so many things to criticize about I don’t know where to start.
Recommendation: turn off your brain - don’t be like me, decreasing the
rating everyday because I think about it too much.

A comet is about to strike Earth, causing a catastrophe similar to the
Extinction Level Event (E.L.E.) that wiped out the dinosaurs. What
follows is the story of a President’s bid to think for the good of his
people, a rising reporter, the love story of two teenagers (one of whom
discovered the comet), and a team of astronauts on the ship “Messiah” to
save the world.

Firstly, there is nothing outstandingly inferior about the making of the
film (nor is there anything outstandingly good about it), but the plot
holes make the film corny and stupid. To be honest, I was more moved by
the trailer than the film itself (which isn’t saying much). Mimi Leder’s
follow-up to “The Peacemaker” is equally incompetent, with all the big
stars wasted. (Perhaps I’m just annoyed that the release of “The
Peacemaker” in the US overshadowed a far superior thriller, “The
Assignment”.) It is very obvious that the title not only represents the
big boom that will result from the collision, but also connotes the
heavy impact on human lives. However, the film simply fails on that
note. The effects are worn-out, the substandard screenplay limited the
acting, and the director continued her sad run in terms of
good-film-making credentials. She’s still making good money though.

Téa Leoni’s unfortunate character, the news reporter, is the foundation
of the story and of the cast. But the film suffers from too many
characters that do not need to be explored. Robert Duvall’s aging
astronaut is lifeless, and Morgan Freeman’s President is restricted to,
well, a righteous President (which means he’s not interesting at all).
Leoni’s character is the only appealing one, and is played with
reasonable conviction (but a rather peculiar showing when reporting for
MSNBC), but was definitely undervalued by the director and
screenwriters.

WARNING: SPOILERS INCLUDED (but a lot of it is irrelevant and
predictable anyway).

Plot holes, plot holes, plot holes. Now, E.L.E. is threatening to
exterminate more than 99% of the human race, and they send eight puny
little nuclear bombs up there? Where’s the logic? Leder could have at
least made it plausible with 20. And then it turns out that only a few
percent of the world population actually perish, and those less selfish
ones (the ones that stayed at home) were the victims. The film was
almost mocking them, telling them they had died for nothing. I also fail
to see how two teenagers, carrying a baby, would be the first to climb
up the mountain/hill, even with a motorbike for a head-start.

It’s unlikely that the dust will take just two years to settle, but that
doesn’t really matter. Building caves was a strategy mentioned in “Dr.
Strangelove”, which proposed that people lived underground for one
hundred or so years. Now THAT is a more practical use for caves. What IS
the point of living in caves? There is no, unlike “Dr. Strangelove”, any
radioactivity outside to restrict exposure. How do plants grow? If
humans have the technology to keep plants alive in caves, there’s no
reason why they can’t do it in the open. The President disclosed that
other countries have been preparing their own caves. Obviously this
means that the other countries were informed a long time ago, and you
can’t be serious to say that nobody leaked the news to the media.

In an important mission like that of the “Messiah”, for that matter ANY
mission, it is impossible that isn’t sufficient fuel for an extra couple
of hundred metres, needless to say tens of kilometres.

This is not DEEP Impact – it’s a frivolous CHEAP Impact. But even with
all that, some overacting, and a 3.4 rating, it’s still watchable, just
don’t think about it. Okay?

****: Classic
***½: Highly recommended; Excellent
***: Recommended
**½: Okay; Passable
**: Time-Killer
*½: Ill-advised cure for boredom
*: Keep an alarm clock beside you, also usually suitable to end a
relationship
½: Try to restrain yourself from inflicting pain to anything nearby,
including yourself and the screen, on realisation of how much time and
money you have wasted
Zero: No comment

Welcome any questions, comments, and criticisms to
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