It’s unfortunate for Deep
Impact that it was released during the same summer as Armageddon, a film which is probably better remembered, cost twice
as much and had a better known cast. That being said, Deep Impact comes off well against the aforementioned film. It’s
CGI has held up well and the various family goodbyes are very emotional. The
plot unfolds at a decent pace and features a couple of twists. On the downside
there are some quite sizable holes. Firstly, it is extremely unlikely that an
amateur astronomer would discover a comet heading for earth, especially in the
Northern Hemisphere. Even if they did, the observatory they sent their
discovery to would have more than one staff member and it would be thoroughly
studied. Another problem is that if we were facing the end of the world, why
would the Government only build one space ship? With all of the world’s
resources at their disposal, why not build two and send them up a few days
apart for backup? News network MSNBC also makes Tea Leoni their lead anchor for
the biggest story in history despite never having done it before. How unlikely
it that?!
The acting was mixed. I thought that Elijah Wood was alright
and his girlfriend Sarah (Leelee Sobieski) was excellent. She bought a lot of
emotion and sadness to some scenes. The crew of the space ship which featured
Robert Duvall, Jon Favreau, Blair Underwood and Ron Eldard were all fine. They
were all convincing as astronauts. Morgan Freeman was convincing and comforting
as the US
President although his main job appeared to be explaining the plot. It is a
shame that lead actress Tea Leoni is so disappointing as it is extremely rare
that an actress has such a pivotal role in an action-disaster movie. I didn’t
feel that her performance was convincing as a reporter and she appeared to have
little emotion given the circumstances. Overall I think that director Mimi
Leder created an average disaster movie which is in no way great but passes a
couple of hours. Leder’s record breaking success with the film however, (this
was the highest grossing female directed film until 2008’s Twilight) is a damming statistic on the number of female directors
working in Hollywood .
6/10
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