In the summer of 1998, two big movies hit theaters with the same basic premise: there was a giant object headed for Earth from space, the kind that could wipe out all life on Earth if it wasn’t stopped somehow. This sort of thing happens sometimes. Two studios will independently develop similar ideas, one of which will be more popular than the other if either gets notice regardless of the individual movie’s overall quality. So, sure, while Armageddon may be easily the more memorable of the “giant asteroid/comet headed straight for Earth” movies of that summer, Deep Impact had its own spin on the idea that makes it a very distinct movie in its own right.
I didn’t think Armageddon was all that good, but it did have Michael Bay’s brand of kinetic crazy going on. Would a more thoughtful movie like Deep Impact turn out better?
That last question is a valid one: Deep Impact is a much more thoughtful movie that saves most of its disaster fireworks for the last ten minutes. I would imagine audiences hoping to see more based on the ad campaign that heavily played up giant tidal waves were a bit disappointed by how much of that is actually in the movie. It’s not a movie devoid of action, but it is instead something that tries to do something its more famous cinematic cousin Armageddon doesn’t quite do by making the main characters seem like actual people. Essentially, Armageddon was mostly concerned with blowing up the asteroid. Deep Impact decides to see how humanity would deal with such a problem as a giant comet headed our way.
It actually starts off hopeful. The movie essentially follows three different characters and their supporting cast: teenage astronomer Leo Beiderman (Elijah Wood), who co-discovered the comet; ambitious reporter Jenny Lerner (Tea Leoni), who nearly broke the story before being asked not to by the president (Morgan Freeman); and veteran astronaut Captain Spurgeon “Fish” Taylor (Robert Duvall), who is seemingly going on the space mission with the young hotshots to act as a calming presence for the folks back home. Each of these characters has their own issues and problems as the situation gets worse. Things look hopeful at first: plans were set in motion a full two years before most of the human population learned what was going on, and God knows I’d feel reassured if President Morgan Freeman calmly explained how the comet was going to be dealt with. But as plans fail and more plans are put into motion, things get a lot hairier.
Oddly enough, it never seems to turn to full on looting or panic until it is maybe too late. Maybe the people in this movie realized there was no point to that sort of thing. Instead, it’s a movie where the whole pointlessness of the situation just has too many people in a deep funk until that tidal wave shows up. That’s the only explanation I have for why there were still people in New York City. But the plus side to this way of telling the story is it actually gives the audience a chance to know many of the characters, such that when many of them die, it feels a lot more tragic as a result. I will also say the destruction that appears at the end of the movie actually still looks pretty good all things being equal.
That said, this movie didn’t really grab me all that much. Leoni’s character didn’t work for me, and whether it was the script or the performance, I really couldn’t say. And as much as I said the movie is more thoughtful, it might have benefited from some more action scenes. Ultimately, the thoughtful approach to this story didn’t work any better for me than Bay’s bombastic one.
Grade: C+
Oddly enough, that’s the same grade I gave Armageddon. Though on a side note, to show how somewhat messed up my priorities are, when Elijah Wood’s Leo heads home to try to rescue his girlfriend, he stops to take a motorbike and sees a dog inside the house. Does he try to take the dog with him? No. Does he even free the animal in some way to fend for itself? No. Meanwhile, I made note of what many people took with them strapped to the rooves of their cars stuck in traffic and wondered at people’s priorities. I actually shouted at my screen for Leo to take the dog with him. Sure, he couldn’t have when I saw what he was taking as a vehicle, but the point stands. At least one of the random New Yorkers fleeing the tidal wave was carrying a cat carrier before she got smashed by the water. Apparently, I care more about pets than people…
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