Subject: Review: Deep Impact

From: Andrew Hicks <[email-masked]>
Date: 29 Jun 1998 04:10:20 GMT

DEEP IMPACT
A film review by Andrew Hicks
Copyright 1998 Andrew Hicks

(1998) *1/2 (out of four)

	There's a 1,000-foot tidal wave at the end of DEEP IMPACT. I'd 
say it pretty accurately represents the towering flood of the last two 
years worth of disaster movies, which are getting more Irwin Allen-
esque with every release. The early wave of this revival, while just as 
cheesy and laughable, at least knew to include thrills every five to ten 
minutes. DEEP IMPACT tries to disguise itself as a human drama, with 
endless filler comprised of disaster prevention plans the country keeps 
taking.

	The repeating cycle is as follows -- the president (Morgan 
Freeman) will go on TV and tell the country that there's a remote 
chance a comet will strike the earth, but that the nation's crack 
scientists and astronauts have some brilliant plan to stop the problem. 
Then we get to see the plan in action, in some sequence utterly lacking 
suspense. The mission will barely fail, and Freeman will tell the 
country that the comet is still headed toward Earth, and there's a 
remote chance it will strike, but that the nation's crack scientists and 
astronauts have some brilliant plan to stop the problem.

	It goes on and on throughout the movie, but every time 
Freeman goes on TV, we know his plan is going to fail. How do we 
know this? Because we've seen the TV ads for DEEP IMPACT, ads that 
feature Freeman telling the nation that "the comet is still headed right 
for us" and show disaster shots of the comet striking Earth and the 
giant tidal wave spreading. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the movie. 
Successful disaster movies have the main disaster toward the 
beginning and more little disasters that follow, but DEEP IMPACT saves 
its one disaster for the end and discloses all in its 30-second TV spots.

	Television is what's wrong with DEEP IMPACT. The main 
character, played by Tea Leoni, is a low-level broadcast journalist for 
MSNBC (and that's the mere tip of the product-placement iceberg) 
who stumbles upon a huge government conspiracy. She thinks it's an 
instance of an ex-Secretary of Something or Other (James Cromwell) 
resigning because of a mistress, and that maybe he took the fall for the 
president in the same area. When she goes nosing around Cromwell, 
he begs her to keep it under wraps. "I know you're just a reporter, but 
you used to be a human being."

	She figures out what's really going on after getting roughed 
up by some FBI men and doing an Internet search, where all good 
journalists learn the difference between a mistress and an extinction-
level comet. Upon a top-secret meeting with President Freeman, Leoni 
agrees to keep the story under wraps until the president can hold a 
press conference, at which she gets to ask the first question. And 
everyone knows, if you get to ask the first question, baby you're a star.

	Leoni ends up in the anchor chair, broadcasting every step of 
the comet's collision course with Earth. And I'm sure it's comforting 
for her to know that, even though the world's ending in a matter of 
months, she's a cable news personality. So there she is, narrating the 
six-astronaut mission to blow the comet up. Such personalities as 
Robert Duvall, Jon Favreau and Blair Underwood cash their paychecks 
and go through the motions of this dragged-out process.

	But as anyone who's seen the commercials knows, the 
astronauts fail. They only end up breaking the comet into two pieces, 
which means even more destruction to the Earth. Yeah, thanks, 
NASA. That's when Freeman has to come on TV for the last time and 
say goodbye to all the people who aren't picked to live in the Missouri 
cave site for two years. They even have animals, two by two, ready to 
climb into the cave. If the focus had been on people living inside these 
caves after the world had been destroyed, DEEP IMPACT could have 
been a far more interesting movie.

	Instead we watch as a lovestruck Elijah Wood defies all odds 
to chase down his young wife, while people pack the highways out of 
town. The reasoning is, of course, that if a comet is going to strike, 
they might as well be out in some scenic rural location. And, 
amusingly, the highway is spotted with people in U-Haul trucks. I'm 
sure it's comforting to know that, even though the world's ending in a 
matter of minutes, the U-Haul people are doing the most business of 
their lives.

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