Early in the film, we find out that a comet “the size of Mt. Everest” is on a collision course to Earth. There looks to be two possible outcomes: The comet hits Earth, destroying it, or the comet does not hit Earth, and humanity is saved but the audience does not get to look at lots of special effects. In the first case you don’t get the necessary happy ending, and in the second everyone leaves feeling cheated.
Most doomsday movies avoid this choice by carefully choosing less than apocalyptic events. A volcano, a twister, or a tidal wave can give lots of scary special effects and still leave a lot of people standing. However, “Deep Impact, looks to back itself into a corner, and maybe that’s why the producers hired not one but two of the smartest writers in Hollywood to work on the film: Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin. Roger Ebert said in his review, “Together, they've figured out how to have their cake and eat it, too.”
How do they do this? Ebert said, “I would not dream of revealing their inspiration, although you may be able to figure it out yourself.” Meanwhile, you can enjoy the way they create little bits of fun in the dialogue, which cheers what is, after all, a formula disaster movie. What’s the formula? Different typical characters are introduced, they’re given personal problems, and the story goes between them as the moment of disaster gets closer. Ebert said, “I always think it's more interesting if they know from the start that there's a big problem; I get tired of scenes in which they live blissfully unaware of the catastrophe unfolding beneath their feet, or above their heads, or wherever.”
“Deep Impact” starts with the necessary opening pre-disaster, in this case a runaway rig that drives down a Jeep and kills the astronomer who is brining news of the approaching comet. (Ebert said, “I always think it's more interesting if they know from the start that there's a big problem; I get tired of scenes in which they live blissfully unaware of the catastrophe unfolding beneath their feet, or above their heads, or wherever.”) Then there’s a little ritual media-hating. Tea Leoni plays a reporter for MSNBC who believes there’s more to the story of a cabinet official’s resignation. She blames him of having an affair with a woman named “Ellie,” and he gets to say, “I know you’re just a reporter, but you used to be a person.” (The approved media response to this is, “Look who’s talking! A Cabinet member!”) Soon she sees her mistake. He is resigning not because of Ellie but because of E.L.E., which is an acronym for “Extinction Level Event.” He wants to spend more time with his family and has saved a yacht with so many cases of vitamin Ensure. He must not have been invited to the meeting where it was explained that all life on Earth would be destroyed by the comet, or the other meeting about the 1,000-foot-tall tidal wave. Ebert said, “My guess is, the president wanted him out of the Cabinet.”
The president, played believingly by Morgan Freeman, goes on TV to tell the bad news to everyone, and talks of the Messiah Project, which will send a human operated U.S.-Russian space craft to put nuclear bombs in the comet and blow it up. We meet the Messiah crew members, including old Spurgeon Tanner, played by Robert Duvall, called out of retirement because he once landed on the moon and might be able to land on the comet.
The younger crew members hate him, we are told, however rebellion onboard is never followed up on. The veteran has a nice group about the young ones: “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 kid, played by Elijah Wood, who also find out the comet is honored. A friend tells him, “You’re gonna have a lot more girls starting now. Famous people always get more girls.” Ebert admitted, “And I liked a line from late in the movie, when one hero tells another, “Look on the bright side. We'll all have high schools named for us.”” However, the movie as a while is very basic. There’s a difficult subplot where Tea Leoni resents her father (Maximilian Schell) for divorcing her mother (Vanessa Redgrave) and marrying a bimbo, and though Redgrave brings a nice sad moment to her scenes, the rest of the subplot play out strangely like a place to put two humans in front of a large special effect. There also are some very unconvincing scenes where millions of people try to run from a city, and everyone one of them are stuck in congestion except, obviously, for the two who are required by the story to get somewhere quick.
Ebert ending his review by saying, “Whether Earth is saved or doomed, or neither, I will leave you to discover for yourself. I personally found it easier to believe that Earth could survive this doomsday scenario than that the Messiah spacecraft could fly at thousands of miles an hour through the comet's tail, which contains rocks the size of two-car garages, without serious consequences. On the disaster epic scale, on which “Titanic” gets four stars and “Volcano” gets 1.5, “Deep Impact” gets 2.5--the same as “Dante's Peak,” even though it lacks a dog that gets left behind.”
I don’t really like this film, but then again, this was a mindless disaster flick from the 90s. I don’t recommend anyone to see this, since this is an average film that doesn’t really hold up today. If you do see this, then you’ll know what I mean.
Next week I will look at another space disaster film that was released some time after this one in “Space Month.”
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