T'is
the season for things to go boom! The summer movie season gets off to an early
start with Deep Impact, an over ambitious sci-fi disaster film that never really
evokes the feeling of doom you might expect. The reason being, really lame characterization.
Tea Leoni, in a completely dull performance, stars as a reporter who gets the
story of a lifetime. Unfortunately she might not be around long enough to share
it.
It
seems an asteroid the size of New York, is barreling towards Earth at breakneck
speed. Once it hits, it spells certain doom for our way of life. The only problem
is, you don't really care for any of these characters, because you never come
to know them. The best performances come from Robert Duvall as a shuttle pilot,
and Morgan Freeman as The President. Unfortunately, neither of these fine actors
get much screen time. Instead, the storyline focuses on soap opera type scenarios
that, for the most part, don't answer questions the audience may have. In fact,
much of the screenplay is very confused.
The
film's two best sequences aren't enough to keep you from looking at your watch.
The first deals with a crew that is sent to land on the asteroid so they can blow
it up. The second deals with the asteroid impact itself, which doesn't happen
until the last ten minutes of the film--offering the usual plethora of special
effects, which, ultimately, are not all that special. The tidal wave sequence
in James Cameron's The Abyss was far superior.
The
whole experience just wasn't that exciting, but then what do I know? I'm just
a stupid critic! After all, Deep Impact did break records and enjoyed a 42 million
dollar opening weekend. Quite frankly, I think this is a low-rent version of Irwin
Allen's 70s disaster flick Meteor--which featured an all-star cast headed by Sean
Connery. (Which is a pretty pathetic statement, considering Meteor wasn't a very
good film either). Deep Impact may have had marginally better special effects,
but Meteor had characters that I cared about. No one wants to see Sean Connery
get it. In closing, I'd like to predict that Michael Bay's Armageddon is going
to be the end of the world movie to end all end of the world movies.
