Deep Impact (1998) 2 1/2 stars out of 4 Starring Tea Leoni, Robert Duvall, Morgan Freeman and Elijah Wood.
The writers of Deep Impact framed a good idea. Forget about a special effects extravaganza. Instead, concentrate on the human element, on how people would react if they knew the end of the world was near.
That's fine, but screenwriters Michael Tolkin (The Rapture) and Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost) overextend themselves. They've created too many characters and too many subplots, thus some of their protagonists get short shrift and some of their stories go nowhere or merely hit dead ends.
Deep Impact opens as Leo Beiderman (Elijah Wood), a 14-year-old student and member of his high school astronomy club, discovers a new body in the night sky.
His find is sent to Professor Wolf, a noted astronomer who makes the discovery that the body is a comet, which he names Wolf-Beiderman, and that it is on a collision course with Earth. But on his way to transmit the information to higher authorities in Washington, the astronomer is killed.
This is a pointless plot device since the story jumps ahead several months and we learn the government knows all about Wolf-Beiderman. We learn this because TV reporter Jenny Lerner (Tea Leoni) is investigating the suspicious resignation of the Secretary of the Treasury, whom she suspects is having an affair with a woman named "Ellie."
When Jenny is kidnapped by the FBI and is taken to meet the president (Morgan Freeman) she learns that "Ellie" is really "E.L.E.," for extinction level event.
The film's first reel is wasted on this, before any real action begins.
It seems the government is already undertaking a plan to try to destroy or divert the comet by sending a team of astronauts to land on the body, plant nuclear weapons and blow it up.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, the populace is told of a lottery in which 1 million people will be housed for two years in deep caverns in Missouri to preserve the human race. Actually, it's only 800,000 people as 200,000 scientists, doctors, artists and other professionals (no lawyers, we hope) already have been notified they will be saved.
The rest will be chosen by a random computer selection of Social Security numbers.
So, that's the set-up.
From here director Mimi Leder pushes the story along. But it is rather slow going, especially here on Earth. The people are too nice, too noble, too stoic. Oh, Leder shows scenes of looting and rioting, but it's scattered and downplayed.
For the most part the human race seems to be facing its end like those stiff-upper-lip passengers on the Titanic.
Up in space, astronaut Spurgeon (what the heck kind of a name is that?) Tanner (Robert Duvall) and his team succeed only in splitting the seven-mile wide comet into two pieces, and both are still taking dead aim at Earth.
We're more than 100 minutes into this two hour drama before the audience gets what it has come to see. The smaller comet strikes in the Atlantic off the East Coast creating gigantic tidal waves that destroy every major American city from Boston to Atlanta.
But the filmmakers have been sabotaged in a sense by the studio. The scenes of the tidal wave hitting New York have been shown in television teasers for the movie so frequently that by the time they are seen on the big screen they have lost some of their awe. It is a case of familiarity breeding ennui. No pun intended, but they have lost their impact.
The performances in Deep Impact are inconsistent. Duvall is his usual low-key self, playing his heroics in a matter-of-fact professional manner. Freeman as the president brings a weight and authority to the role that makes him a most believable head of state.
Wood is exuberant as the youthful astronomer, but the subplot involving him, his girlfriend and their respective families seems a bit padded.
Leoni is sincere, but a bit lightweight for a TV anchor. And Oscar-winners Vanessa Redgrave and Maximillian Schell as her estranged parents are given very little to do.
This is the first of the summer's earth-meets-heavenly body disaster flicks. The second, Armageddon, opens July 1. Coming from producer Jerry Bruckheimer (The Rock, Con Air) and starring Bruce Willis, one can expect more pyrotechnics and machismo.
For now, though, we will have to settle for Deep Impact. It's a flawed feature with noble intentions.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, Ind. He can be reached by e-mail at bloom@journal-courier.com or at cbloom@iquest.net
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