Deep Impact (Special Collector's Edition)

I'm giving this two stars because it's just marginally better than the totally absurd "Day After Tomorrow". It starts off pretty well and ends moderately well, but the entire middle is BORING. It's very hard to care about any of the characters, most of whom seem to be doing everything they can to be shallow idiots, if not totally brain dead. Their scripted actions are, in many cases, directly opposite to the real actions of people in disasters, such as we have seen in the World Trade Center or in the 2006 tsunami. Perhaps that is an observation from hind sight, since this movie was made long before we had such disasters to judge it by.

The one real person in the entire cast is Morgan Freeman as the President of the US. The worst is Tea Leoni, who sleepwalks through the picture.

As for the destruction of NYC, that is pretty good, much better than in some of the other disaster movies I have seen ("Fourth of July", "Day After Tomorrow", etc.). There is one ironic and sad moment, as the World Trade Center is inundated, but not totally destroyed. But, of course, this movie was made before....

Tea Leoni gets the Ben Affleck award for acting malpractice. The woman cannot act, and why anyone would give her the starring role in any film is a complete mystery. This woman not only cannot act, at least in this film she appears to be stoned on some powerful drug. And I am being kind. (Very kind.) Granted that she is an ectomorphic blonde, but come on. There are others out there with true acting ability. Leoni has none.

Morgan Freeman and Robert Duvall save this film from being an utter turkey, but only by a slight margin. Freeman as the President of the United States is very, very good, and he is really the savior of this otherwise awful film. This one is a stinker, but the special effects just barely make it watchable to the end. I never tire of watching New York City get destroyed. This saves the film, just as the destruction of New York has saved several other otherwise horrible films. Only barely though.

Deep Impact is a rarity. Unlike many Hollywood movie about disasters, this film is largely based on the humanity angle: what would you do if a large percentage of life, maybe even all life, will be wiped out in a short amount of time? Sure Armageddon had it but let's face it: it was melodramatic cheese trying to pass itself off as carrying real emotion. While there is some trouble spots, this film is different in that it's geared primarily towards the human side of a crisis and it works better.

A simple Astronomy club meeting has young Leo Biederman discovering something odd in the sky, and Dr. Wolf, an Observatory worker makes it official: they found a comet. Problem is, it's heading for Earth. One year later, a reporter named Jenny Lerner accidentally stumbles across the story and she becames the world's link to the crisis. And so we follow several storylines from Leo's love for another girl, Jenny's familial problems and the astronauts sent to destroy the comet.

For those of you looking for action heavy stuff, it mainly has 2 key scenes: the astronauts' mission to nuke the comet and when one of them smacks into the Atlantic Ocean creating a massive tidal wave. While these are admittedly cool scenes, they're not the main reason to see the film and since the focus is on human reaction to impending death, they might seem out of place but it helps makes the story become a bit more epic and larger scale. The one thing though is that they're slightly ineptly directed, especially the wave sequence, where the scenes don't really register since they go by a bit too quickly or there's too much going on in one shot.

As for the cast, they're quite good and manage to be interesting in their roles. Morgan Freeman, aside from Martin Sheen, is probably the best President on screen, managing to be charismatic and leader-like while also having a commanding presence. Tea Leoni doesn't really have the greatest range but there's something likable about her. And always wonderful Robert Duvall has his trademark enthusiasm where even while mad, it doesn't come across as overly vicious.

The special features are very disappointing. This so-called Collector's Edition only really has about 4 featurettes and a commentary. Would've been nice if more stuff was included but as it stands it's the movie that makes it worthy of a purchase.

This film is so bad that being forced to watch it could be used as a penalty for warcrimes. It is as scientifically realistic as the Roadrunner cartoons and has all the character development of a Geico commercial.

Out of the hundreds of films that I have watched in my lifetime, of every stripe and quality, this is the first one that was so utterly vapid and feeble-minded that I began fast-forwarding through simply so that I could see the meteor hit and make the big wave. If this film were a sexual encounter, both partners would have fallen asleep during the foreplay.

Life is far too precious to waste on this skanky turtle of a film.

After a number of viewings I have decided to share my thoughts on this one. Deep Impact was not reviewed very favorably when it came out but I think most of that the reviewers missed something.

A comet is discovered that is on a collision course with Earth. That the government is aware of it and keeping that the public unaware while it spends big money on countermeasures. A reporter accidentally stumbles onto that the story and pushes up that the date for public awareness. A complex capable of housing one million people has been built underground. A joint US/Russia project is building a rocket to travel to that the comet, plant nuclear warheads and blow that the comet to bits. A back-up plan calls for a massive titan missile strike to change that the comet's path.

That the nukes are buried one-hundred yards into that the surface of that the seven-mile comet (a bit shallow if you ask me) and only result in blowing a piece off making two comets out of one. Both will impact Earth. That the Titan missile strike also fails. All that is left is for those selected to make it into that the bunkers before that the impact.

That the first, and smaller, piece hits in that the Atlantic creating a tidal wave that reaches that the Ohio Valley. But that the second piece does not hit. That the surviving astronauts locate a vent deep enough that blowing their remaining nukes should destroy that the comet. Their plan works and that the Earth is not completely destroyed.

Sounds like it could make a good action film but it doesn't. That the comet is really secondary to that the plot. That the real plot is imminent destruction and how people handle it. Several families are highlighted and even a broken family makes peace to face that the end together. In this respect that the movie excelled. I have watched a lot of disaster films and seen plenty of people die in them but this one was different. I am not ashamed to say that I had tears in my eyes for much of that the ending. That is that the true deep impact of this movie.

On another level you can see some excellent performances. Morgan Freeman does an excellent job playing that the President. While he does not inspire me to go out and vote for him (as was that the case in Independence Day) I would like our leaders to show as level a head as he did. Tea Leoni was pretty much what you would expect from her television show. But that the best performance came from Robert Duval (no surprise there) as an aging astronaut and that the last man to walk on that the moon. How he handled that the young hotshots and took command was one of that the finer bits of acting I have seen in a long time. That the scenes where that the astronauts get one last chance to see their families before they make that the ultimate sacrifice was one of that the most touching and emotional I have ever seen. So see Deep Impact but not for that the comet.