Despite becoming known at the time as "the comet film that isn't Armageddon", I have long been curious about whether or not my opinion of Deep Impact would be the same as it was when I first saw it. I thought it was a bit dull, suffered from some mis-casting in a couple of main roles, and basically proved to be a much harder sell due to it being, in technical terms, "a bit of a bummer" in comparison to the woohah jingoism and blockbuster silliness of Armageddon.
It turns out that my opinion remains almost exactly the same as it was.
A huge comet is heading to Earth. Young Leo Biederman (Elijah Wood) is happy to have spotted it in the sky and had his name attached to it. Unfortunately, it's on a collision course with our planet. This becomes known to the President Of The United States (Morgan Freeman) before most of the population are informed, but a hungry reporter (Jenny Lerner, played by Téa Leoni) also stumbles across the story. She uses her knowledge to advance her career, which gives her a front row seat as plans are established to either destroy the comet or, failing that, ensure the survival of humanity.
Having now made a comfortable living in the world of television shows for the past few decades, there was a time when director Mimi Leder was arguably primed to be one of the few female directors entrusted with delivering big-budget blockbuster entertainment. She helmed the first film to be distributed by DreamWorks Pictures (The Peacemaker, which I don't recall being lauded as a great success), and was then in charge of this, a film simply overshadowed by something with a similar premise and less concern for filling the runtime with too much personal drama and weighty considerations about the endurance of the human race. Leder handles everything well enough, but she's hampered by the screenplay (from Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin) and lack of proper star power.
Rubin and Tolkin really want to balance the big stakes with smaller personal moments here, and the film starts to drag every time we have to return to watching Leoni's character deal with her divorced mother (Vanessa Redgrave) and father (Maximillian Schell). None of it feels that important, considering the looming threat, but it has to be viewed that way because that's what we're told, right up until a horribly dissatisfying final scene for two of those characters.
As much as I like Leoni, she's not a good fit for a main role in this kind of fare. Especially when her character has to be emotionally and physically buffeted by converging events happening around her. Freeman is a much better fit for his role, a trustworthy and good-hearted POTUS, and young Wood brings a good bit of energy to his scenes, often sharing them with a young Leelee Sobieski, but often interacting with Richard Schiff, Betsy Brantley, Gary Werntz, and Denise Crosby. There's some excitement when we're spending time with the space shuttle crew (headed up by Robert Duvall) hoping to destroy the comet, but even that is weakened by the presence of Ron Eldard being one of the worst cast members inevitably given more focus than some of the others (Blair Underwood, Mary McCormack, and Jon Favreau among them). Others to look out for are Kurtwood Smith (working down on the ground for NASA), Laura Innes (a White House correspondent displeased when her colleague usurps her), Dougray Scott (a cameraman), Charles Martin Smith, Mike O'Malley, and James Cromwell.
What's here is generally well done, even if it cannot overcome the weaknesses in the material and some of the casting, but it never feels like a fun time to spend two hours. There's some spectacle, and it may make you think about how you would want to spend your last moments if you knew the world was going to end, but most people, myself included, would much rather stick on a film that has some Aerosmith on the soundtrack and Steve Buscemi going a bit stir crazy in space.
6/10
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