Coming Soon to a Crater Near You
The dramatic story of a brave dentist’s struggle with a life-threatening wisdom tooth extraction….
No, no, no. This is the shocking story of an event that may happen in the very near future – an event that will profoundly change the lives of every human being on the planet. Yes, this is the film that dares to ask the question: What would happen if Morgan Freeman is elected President of the United States?
I couldn’t guess what all the implications are, but some things we know for sure: if Morgan Freeman becomes President, a huge asteroid will hit the Earth and all life will be in danger of extinction. Tea Leoni will stumble her way behind the anchor desk at MSNBC. And most tragic of all, Bob Balaban will have a terrible accident involving a cell phone
Deep Impact is the first asteroid-hits-the-planet movie so far this year, and it’s sure to be the most serious. No need to argue over who is ripping off whom – this story has been filmed many times. Most notable in this category would include entries from France (The End of the World, 1934), Japan (Gorath, 1962), and the USA (When Worlds Collide, 1951 and Meteor, 1979). The highlight of all these films, and the main reason to watch them, is their special effects sequences showing mass destruction and death. Everybody wants to see their home town smashed flat – if only in a movie.
This picture won’t disappoint you in this area. It strives to score high as drama, showing us how a catastrophic event would really affect the lives of lots of little people. As a drama, it’s not so bad – I actually got a bit choked up at Tea’s difficulties with her parents and the teen astronomer’s battle to keep his girlfriend alive. But what we really want to see here is grand scale spectacle and we don’t want to wait through 90 minutes of drama to get on with it. Deep Impact feeds this need by presenting a crew of astronauts led by fleshy old Robert Duvall on a mission to blow up the asteroid before it reaches Earth. The scenes of these heroes risking their necks while bouncing around the big space rock are mighty amusing and provide ample suspense.
The dilemma for the filmmakers is deciding whether or not to destroy the Earth or not – which is the better ending? We want the heroes – or a decent proportion of them – to make out okay in the end, but not at the expense of the necessary death and destruction. I won’t ruin it for you other than to say Deep Impact has a clever plot twist that let’s us have it both ways.
If you see only one asteroid movie before the next one comes out, let it be this one.