Deep Impact (1998)

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Remember Armageddon? That was a great movie about an asteroid on its way to earth. an action movie to be precise. this movie has the same background story but puts its focus on a couple of random people and their fates. but some of their story line feel forced and the outcome was no surprise. at least they are trying to be more realistic in terms of what could happen in such event. overall the movie is just okay... not really bad but also not great. you might watch it once on the tv and then probably never again

It's entertaining in it's own way, not a waste of time. But crazy in some respects, you give a 3 minute warning of impending doom once you've got to the bunker. Not a two weeks from now, me and a million elite chosen ones are off to safety. Unless you've guaranteed an elite military force they and families are included, otherwise you've no army or police, you're going nowhere. Another thing, do Americans really spend so much time saying I love you to each other. If so it's no wonder you made an industry out of psychology. Americans love candy coatings, but Europeans find it a bit sickly when overdone.

A passable, diverting, but sometimes boring disaster flick. At least it's better than some of the ones they made in the '70s, mainly due to the improved special effects. They just weren't able to do them justice in those days, so this blows METEOR out of the water pretty well, although it's still far, far below stuff like THE TOWERING INFERNO. Mainly because effects on their own do not make a film (take VOLCANO for instance).What makes this film better than most is the focus on the people, not the special effects, which is refreshing for a blockbuster like this these days. We do actually get to know and feel for the characters (even if we hate them), so the ending will have some meaning. Unfortunately, most of the film is made up of slow-moving exposition, lots of dialogue and drippy sentiment which comes across as shallow and pointless, it's so cheesy and bad it makes you sick. There are some good scenes like the mission to Mars, but these are few and far between. I can safely say that the ending is worth waiting for though.The special effects here involve cities exploding as they get hit by the tidal wave. Just like INDEPENDENCE DAY, but with water instead of fire. While some look unrealistic, they're certainly a lot more convincing than in many other, lower budgeted films, so these expensive movies do have something going for them I suppose. Anyway, the effects look amazing and jaw-dropping, just as to be expected, although there are surprisingly few of them (the whole tidal wave thing can't last longer than five minutes). The spaceship scenes are also good, with excellent character buildings, we really feel for the guys and girls at the end of the film.The cast is populated by lots of famous names which also adds to the enjoyment level. Tea Leoni is a pretty bland and obnoxious lead, although to be fair she's not as bad as some. Maximillian Schell is heavyweight support and fits his expensive-looking, amiable role like a glove, while Morgan Freeman is excellent, as to be expected, as the first black President, although woefully underused. Robert Duvall is also good value as the aged, grandfatherly astronaut, and he's a character we really care about. In fact the only characters that really grate are the teenagers, with a wimpish Elijah Wood simply awful and his 'wife' nearly as sickly. Further down in the cast list we have cult favourite Charles Martin Smith as a nervous scientist (what else? This guy spends his life playing scientists), and one of my personal favourites, Kurtwood Smith (ROBOCOP), as mission control operator.Unfortunately, DEEP IMPACT is only spoiled by the overlong, boring sentimental scenes. What we needed was more action and more plot development, instead of endless romances and farewells. What did surprise me was the relatively high mortality rate, a lot more actors and actresses die than you would imagine. Overall I would call this solid entertainment, a little too family-orientated for my liking.

I started watching Deep Impact out of curiosity. The premise itself is quite interesting; a world preparing for the inevitable extinction-level-event that will occur, but like the work of Roland Emmerich, the story is stretched far too thin, exploring too many characters.Any aspect of the story; the child who first found the meteor, the journalist who first uncovers the government conspiracy, the astronauts who try to stop the comet before it hits earth, or the older woman facing her inevitable demise, could've been their own standalone film, but instead the filmmakers decided to push everything into a single film, making every aspect shallow and rushed.By far my favourite part of the movie are the astronauts. The scene where they plant bombs on the comet in attempts to destroy or alter its course, is by far the most dramatic and emotionally resonant aspect of the film. The effects were also very good for the time. Thankfully, a movie called Sunshine with a similar but different premise explored this sort of story further. The worst part of the story is the kid's story. This kid discovered the comet that would destroy the earth, and all he cares about is boning some girl (and this is made clear in the film, when one of his classmates says in front of an entire school "You can have sex with any girl you want" for discovering the comet), to the point where he convinces her to marry him to save her family. That is really offensive and creepy, and shouldn't have ever been treated with the whimsy this film did. He could've used his apparent authority to save more people, perhaps his entire class, but instead he marries a 14 year old girl.The rest of the film is decent to mediocre. The President, played by Morgan Freeman, is incredibly interesting, as there is an air of sinister around him when he captures a journalist. But as I said before, most of the film is shallow due to how spread out the film's focus is.In Conclusion:Pros: -Astronaut storyline -Morgan Freeman as President -The Landing on the Comet scene -The impact of the first cometCons: -The Soundtrack -The kid storyline -The dialogue -Too many characters6/10