I'm not a professional movie reviewer, but I decided to give on for this movie.
If I frequent this sub, you will notice that I am very critical of movies. So any positive review is rare. I consider my reviews are for the "thinking" person, although there may be some "thinkers" who disagree.
Deep Impact (1998)
Cast:
Morgan Freeman ... President Beck
Robert Duvall ....... Spurgeon Tanner
Téa Leoni ............ Jenny Lerner
Elijah Wood .......... Leo Biederman
Blair Underwood .... Mark Simon
W. Earl Brown ....... McCloud
Vanessa Redgrave . Robin Lerner
Jenny Lerner happens upon what she thinks is a bland story about sex and scandal in the White House. She immediately finds herself in the midst of a year long secret that a comet is headed for Earth and will impact in on year. What transpires after that is a race against time as citizens of the world dash to safety. Téa Leoni does a very good job with a fairly limited script as she provides an eyebrow raising performance on the big screen. The all-star cast provides interesting psychological perspectives as they ponder their respective fates.
The plot of the movie itself is a good one, and for once my digest of "Hollywood" endings was justified, as this movie pulled a 180 and provided what I call a very realistic ending. The special effects were precise, not over done, yet quite reflective of the awesome power of a 1000 ft. tidal wave. And finally, a movie that DOESN'T ridiculously depict people "outrunning" a shock blast (I.e., Independence Day).
Unless you are an astronomical scientist, you will be hard pressed to find any impossibilities in this depiction of special effects. The only draw back I saw in this movie, which was completely overshadowed by it's very satisfying ending, was the poor realism of human behavior as a whole in the face of imminent doom. For example, with a year warning, no communities or individuals were creating underground shelters of their own, especially since there was not enough room in the military underground city to house more than a million people.
I give this movie 3 and 1/2 stars out of 4, one of my highest ratings.
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