Deep Impact (1998)
Directed by Mimi Leder

While I've often said that any movie in which Charles Martin Smith is killed in a fiery car crash within the first five minutes is a good film in my book, I'd have to qualify that to exclude Deep Impact, which is, through-and-through, a piece of horseshit. And although it does not suck to the extraordinary level of misery that, say, The Fifth Element does, Deep Impact is a pretty lousy movie.

Elijah Wood, typecast as an awkward high school nerd, plays the boy who discovers the comet and later must choose between guaranteed safety and the woman he loves. Well, the 15-year-old nerdy girl he loves, anyway. Stupid.

Morgan Freeman plays the President, who makes a series of Serious announcements to the American people regarding the comet and what to expect in the aftermath. First off, there's no way in hell America is going to elect a black man President any time soon, and if they do, it will not be one as skinny as Morgan Freeman. They'd turn out in huge numbers to elect John Amos, or Mean Joe Greene, but America doesn't trust a black man they can't fear.

I appreciate the attempt to downplay the race issue and just matter-of-factly have a black President, but I would have much preferred John Amos in the part. I think John Amos is a very talented actor, and like to see him bustin' ass on the big screen. Robert Duvall plays a John Glenn-esque old school astronaut sent up with a group of upstarts to destroy the comet. This subplot is among the weakest in the film, and gets damn ridiculous after awhile.

I was glad to discover, though, that this was not the very similar Bruce Willis film that came out around the same time (Armageddon). That one looks friggin awful.

The film tries to build up a whole lot of suspense, but I didn't really care about anything that was happening. They say they're going to send up a space shuttle to destroy the comet. Ok, I thought, well, they're taking care of it. Good, I'll just sit here. Oh, it didn't work. Well, I'm sure they'll find a way. It didn't help that there were no likable characters whatsoever.

About twenty minutes before the movie ends, you finally get to see some action when the comet hits at last. Lots of good special effects here, but not really worth having sat through the preceding six hours of empty plot and badly written dialogue. Like I said, Deep Impact wasn't the worst movie ever made, but it was not worth my well-earned money. The disaster movie thing is getting pretty tired, as is the "summer blockbuster."

I think they should just get it over with and do one big movie where every huge catastrophe that could ever happen, happens, and have that be the last one. It could have a huge all-star cast with corresponding action figures, featuring John Amos as President Bust-Ass and Jeff Goldblum as the nerdy scientist. This would clear the summer for theatrical re-releases of movies like Any Which Way You Can and Swamp Thing, in turn clearing cable programming to allow for more soft-core pornography.

Review by Running Bear