Subject: Review: Deep Impact (1998)

From: Tim Voon <[email-masked]>
Date: 7 Jul 1998 05:29:19 GMT

DEEP IMPACT 1998
                      A film review by Timothy Voon
                       Copyright 1998 Timothy Voon
                     2 :-) :-) for heartfelt impact

Cast: Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave,
Maximilian Schell, Morgan Freeman, Leelee Sobieski, James Cromwell
Director: Mimi Leder
Producers: David Brown, Richard D. Zanuck
Screenplay: Michael Tolkin, Bruce Joel Rubin

If ever there was ever a disaster movie that focussed more on the
emotional issues of love and sacrifice, than the actual special effects
of destroying earth, then it will probably be remembered as DEEP IMPACT.
Man is on the verge of extinction as a comet plummets towards earth, and
like the dinosaurs before us, the human race is about to become
fossilised. But unlike the dinosaurs, mankind has a great ability to
innovate. With the combined effort between ex-cold war enemies, the US
and the USSR, a group of astronauts are assembled to blow up the big
rock.

If you were expecting to see large tidal waves, rip-apart famous
American cities, then your wait will be a long one. Much of the movie
focuses on the loneliness of a wannabe famous reporter, with divorced
parents. A great scene where a daughter says to her estranged father,
‘It was a perfect day’, and moments later a large wave thumping them
into oblivion. An emotionally charged scene, where a mother screams to
her daughter escaping on a motorcycle, ‘Take my baby, take my baby!’
This is soon followed by lovers holding each other peacefully, before
being blasted into oblivion by the same large wave. Before finally, the
first Black American President (Morgan Freeman), giving some tear
jerking words post IMPACT, about big waves rolling, cities falling but
mankind living on etc. etc. as if this movie was not emotionally packed
enough already.

The virtually unknown cast, except for some golden oldies (Robert
Duvall, Vanessa Redgrave, Maxcimilian Schell), who give this movie some
credibility and is a great economical plan for the worth-waiting-for
special effects heaped towards the end. Some people will dislike the
attempts at mixing a bowl full of thoughtfulness in with a dish full of
‘special effects’, but it really ain’t half bad.

                              Timothy Voon
                     e-mail: [email-masked]
         Movie Archives http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Tim+Voon
                  Hugues Bouclier’s Movies in Melbourne
         http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~bouclier/week/movies.html