Movie Review: Deep Impact (1998)

The movie stars Elijah Wood, Robert Duvall, Morgan Freeman, James Cromwell, Dougray Scott and Laura Innes.

I came across this movie on Netflix a couple days ago and, realizing I had never actually taken the time to watch it, decided to do so over the course of a couple lunches. I had some doubts about it when I started watching the film. But, as it turns out, it was considerably better than I thought it would be.

I have seen a similar movie, "Armageddon", on more than one occasion and figured, based mostly on the fact the films came out at roughly the same time, this would be almost identical to that one. As it turns out, while the movies share some similar traits, this one did have some noticeable differences, including some that I found I really liked.

One thing, in particular, that surprised me about this film was the way it managed to toy with my emotions. The movie does a great job of giving the various players life and, because of that, it's easy to feel bad for them when all hope seems to be lost.

In fact, when things went from bad to worse and it looked like it was only a matter of time before the planet was destroyed, I actually felt myself getting pretty bummed out. Watching main characters deciding to die while others were forced to say goodbye to their children and other loved ones was actually pretty sobering because even if someone did manage to save the day at the last second, the end result was still going to be the loss of many lives.

Probably my only real complaint about the movie was the President of the United States (Freeman) because, while I think he did OK given the circumstances, I was a little disappointed he never really did anything heroic.

At minimum, it would have been nice to see him publicly decide to stay in the White House and face imminent destruction with everyone else rather than taking his place as one of the chosen few who were going to be saved. I kept waiting for that moment and it never came.

This was a surprisingly good movie and I'm disappointed it took me so long to watch it. If you haven't seen it, I do recommend it.

My Grade: A