Cheap Deep Impact (Collector's Edition) (DVD) (Robert Duvall, Téa Leoni, Elijah Wood, Morgan Freeman) (Mimi Leder) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Deep Impact (Collector's Edition)

A monumental movie despite some flaws
Here is a good and moving film, based on a significant amount of legitimate science, about the implications of an Earth impact of a large meteor or asteroid. Its best performances include those of Morgan Freeman as US President and Robert Duvall as leader of a crew of astronauts trying to destroy the giant meteor. The rest of his crew includes some impressive members as well. Minor detractions include something of an overdosing on the strong-headedness of a news reporter played by Tea Leoni. That overdosing gets grating at times, though her performance is not without its bright and moving moments as well. Her mother is palyed by Vanessa Redgrave, who seems to be a jinxed actress in recent years. For all her imressive array of worthy past performances, she's hasn't seemed able to land a worthy role for some time. It would have been nice if this movie could have broken that jinx for her, but it doesn't. Her character's ex-husband and father of the reporter is played by Maxmillian Schell, about the most bland of major characters, neither highly memorable nor particularly distracting. But the younger members of the cast are perhaps the biggest surprise. Elijah wood plays a young amateur astronomer who discovered the menacing meteor. He's as major a character as any others, and proves altogether up to task of playing a crucial role. His girlfriend is played by Leelee Sobieski (oh, that all her performances could be this grand). She's not even listed in most short enumerations of the cast, but her radiant performance is a show-stealing one.

---

Will Earth Survive?
A few years ago, two movies were made that dealt with asteroids hitting the earth. One was "Armageddon", the other was this fine film, "Deep Impact". This movie stars Tea Leoni as Jenny Lerner, a reporter for CNBC who discovers news about an "E.L.E", Extinction Level Event. Apparently, a comet "the size of Mt. Everest", according to the film, is on a collision course with earth. Under orders from the President, played superbly by veteran actor Morgan Freeman, construction on a space vehicle has started. Built by the United States and Russia, the "Messiah" will deliver eight nuclear warheads, place them inside the rogue comet, and blow it off course. The Messiah is commanded by astronaut Spurgeon Tanner (Robert Duvall).

The comet has a rotation period of fourteen hours, and the crew of Messiah can only work during darkness due to the escaping compressed vapors and extremely high temperatures when the comet is in daylight.

After detonation of the warheads, the comet splits into two pieces, and both are still on a collision course with earth. Meanwhile, people are hoarded to Missouri's limestone hills to live underground until its safe to start over. The people have been randomly selected by a computer.

A plan is devised to fire missiles at the comet to see if they can alter its course, but this ultimately fails as well. Finally, the crew of Messiah decides to crash their ship and four remaining nukes into the large section of the comet, as its too late to stop the smaller piece from hitting the earth.

The special effects in this movie are awesome, especially the entry of the smaller comet into the atmosphere and the ensuing tidal wave that envelops New York City. Maximillian Schell, Vanessa Redgrave, and Elijah Wood do excellent jobs in their roles as well.

I feel this movie had a more "human" side to it than "Armageddon". I enjoyed both movies, but Armageddon seemed to be a little more "on the edge" than Deep Impact. In this movie, you could really relate to the characters and the urgency and utter hopelessness of their situation. I didn't get that feeling with Armageddon.

Both of these movies are good in their own right. I recommend both, but Deep Impact focuses on the plight of the characters more. I think action movie fans would enjoy them, but perhaps for different reasons.

---

i prefer armageddon because...
...if you are gonna have a film about an ELE, with the slightly
more serious approach that covers the sort of lottery in this
one (which all seems perfectly believable), you ought to have
some emotional impact to the story

maybe it's been been too long since i saw it, but it just seemed
like no one in the film really cared about what was going to
happen. seemed a little odd to me...