THE AISLE SEAT - "DEEP IMPACT"

by Mike McGranaghan

This summer brings us not one but two movies about comets/asteroids hitting the Earth. The first is called Deep Impact and the second - due in July - is Armageddon. As you can imagine, there's no love lost between the filmmakers of the two similarly-themed movies. In fact, the screenwriter of Armageddon took a shot at Deep Impact in a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly, saying that it was little more than two hours of "people standing around waiting to die." And you know what? He's right. Deep Impact is unusually somber - and borderline depressing - for an action picture. Normally, I would be intrigued by the philosophical aspects of a disaster flick, but despite some respectable elements, this one just kind of withers on the vine.

Tea Leoni plays a reporter for MSNBC, the cable news channel. She stumbles upon what she thinks is a Presidential sex scandal, only to discover that, in reality, the strange goings-on in the government are the result of a giant comet headed straight for the Earth. The big rock - which is almost seven miles long - threatens to wipe out most of the planet. Meanwhile, the President (Morgan Freeman) announces a plan to stop the comet. A high-tech space ship (dubbed the Messiah) will launch into space, land on the projectile, and drill it into little pieces. Robert Duvall plays the leader of the excursion, a well-known astronaut who once walked on the moon.

In the event that this plan does not work, a series of caves is built which will hold a million people lucky enough to win a lottery. They will stay in the caves for two years, upon which time they will emerge and re-build civilization. One of the people who makes it is a high school student (well played by Elijah Wood) who helped discover the comet.

Deep Impact, like many disaster films, suffers from having too many characters, all of whom have their own little subplots. There is the MSNBC reporter who uses the story to further her career, her depressed aging mother, her philandering father, the high school student who spotted the comet, his girlfriend (who may get access to the caves if she marries him), an atheistic astronaut, the brave leader of the space expedition whose two sons fear he may never return, and the President of the United States. Believe it or not, that's only a partial list of the characters. The overloaded cast only serves to slow the picture down. With a giant comet plummeting toward the planet, I couldn't have cared less about things like the fact that the reporter's father is dating a much younger woman. Furthermore, I'm not sure why the filmmakers thought anyone would care about these kinds of details. You go to see a movie about a comet hitting the Earth and you expect to see a comet hitting the Earth. Leave the domestic dramas for another movie.

And, on a side note, how come disaster movies only show how the disaster will affect middle-class suburban people? Why not have a couple of characters from the inner city - places that are already filled with despair and hopelessness - to show how the citizens there react? How would a young gangbanger living in the midst of South Central Los Angeles respond to the news that an enormous rock was going to destroy the planet? Wouldn't that be an interesting angle to take, instead of trotting out the same old white-bread, we're-never-going-to-see-Grandma-again stock characters?

Perhaps that's a bit too much to lay on any one particular film. Still, Deep Impact never creates the overwhelming sense of doom that Titanic did, and it doesn't have as much fun destroying the world as Independence Day did (I realize that sounds absurd - but wasn't that a really entertaining movie?). Essentially, you get a bunch of characters standing around awaiting the destruction of the planet. One supporting character even commits suicide. Isn't it bad enough that we have to watch everyone gear up to be killed? Must we watch this poor person beat the comet to the punch as well?

Deep Impact is not a bad movie, but it could have been improved. Other disaster flicks have suffered the same flaws and have still managed to work. For starters, the film needs a stronger central character. The audience sees the story largely through the eyes of the MSNBC reporter. Although Tea Leoni is a superb comic actress (check out her work in Flirting With Disaster), she is bland in this dramatic role, delivering her lines in an aimless monotone. A scientific explanation of the disaster would also help. The film only gives us a perfunctory explanation near the end. I'd like to have known exactly how this event would go down. All we know is that there will be a big tidal wave and lots of dust.

Fortunately, there are a few things that allowed me to overlook the flaws (to a degree). Some of the performances are very strong, especially the ones by Morgan Freeman and Elijah Wood. And, individually, some of the scenes work quite well. There are enough pros in the cast to elevate the often drippy dialogue. The movie also has some astounding special effects in the final 20 minutes (which are admittedly exciting). The disaster footage is scary and realistic.

But the bottom line is that Deep Impact never knows exactly what it wants to do. It could have used a lot more of that action, or a little less of it. I have no objection to a movie that examines the psychological implications of a natural disaster. In fact, I think you could make a superb film about how people deal with impending calamity. But Deep Impact never fully commits to its psychological ideas, and it also never commits to being an all-out action-fest. It falls awkwardly in between these two things, and is watchable, but unremarkable. Deep Impact tries to have its cake and eat it, too, but it only ends up choking on the icing.

( 1/2 out of four)