|
|
|
May 8, 1998
'Deep Impact': How Do You Reroute a Comet? Carefully
Related ArticlesThe New York Times on the Web: Current Film Forum
Join a Discussion on Movies
By JANET MASLIN
pparently there is no better aid to family therapy than a murderously large meteor hurtling toward Earth. So the costly comet thriller "Deep Impact," which is to summer movies what the first crocus is to springtime, explores the salutory effects of imminent doom. Lovers bond, family ties bind and old wounds heal as the planet prepares for its final hours, although the crisis proves not as dire as it could have been. We will survive to be hit by another comet picture ("Armageddon") in July.
"Deep Impact" will doubtless seem the more sensitive of the two, since it emphasizes feelings over firepower whenever possible. Mimi Leder, who directed "The Peacemaker" and gives greater gloss and personality to this film, directs with a distinct womanly touch. Within the end-of-the-world action genre, it's rare to find attention paid to rescuing art, antiques, elephants and flamingos. Or to see the day-care center at the television station, a peaceful counterpart to the frenzied newsroom. "Geologists and climatologists!" shouts a newsroom staff member as the comet story goes public. "Does anyone know how big was the one that killed all the dinosaurs?"
Credit:Industrial Light & Magic The comet on a collision course with Earth in a scene from "Deep Impact," a film directed by Mimi Leder. Not exactly, but we know this one is the size of Manhattan below 110th Street. And it is first detected a year before the emergency, when a high school astronomer named Leo Biederman (Elijah Wood) takes a photograph through his telescope. Cut to a comet expert (Charles Martin Smith) nerdy enough to eat pizza at his keyboard. Fiddling distractedly with his computer, this scientist happens to examine the comet's orbit. Leder's directorial style, familiar yet enjoyably brisk, indicated the man's double-take just by watching the pizza drop.
After dispatching with the scientist in one of the film's infrequent action sequences, the story jumps forward to find an MSNBC reporter, Jenny Lerner (Tea Leoni), stumbling onto a scoop. Jenny has a lead about the peculiar circumstances surrounding the resignation of the Secretary of the Treasury (James Cromwell). She thinks he has been having an affair with a woman named Ellie. No such luck. The sweet nothings that this man has been whispering are actually about an ELE. That is short for Extinction Level Event, which is long for Killer Comet. And Jenny is the first to know.
In classic disaster fashion, "Deep Impact" surrounds Jenny with a colorful assortment of fellow worriers. Morgan Freeman makes a fine president of the United States, with a thoughtful manner and just the right reassuring television presence. (He dresses casually for telling the American public the absolute worst comet news.) Vanessa Redgrave and Maximilian Schell are Jenny's glamorous, estranged parents. Leelee Sobieski is Leo Biederman's sweetheart, and the film actually finds a way for them to marry and have a baby without having sex. At the helm of the astronauts' mission to land on and deflect the comet is a tough but reassuring Robert Duvall.
This is a film that finds time for Duvall to talk about Mark Twain and Herman Melville but doesn't waste much energy on wanton destruction. It's a welcome change of pace, but action audiences looking for an exciting apocalypse will have to wait. The special effects are elaborate but relatively brief, featuring gaseous comet close-ups and an impressive tidal wave.
As written by Michael Tolkin ("The Player") and Bruce Joel Rubin ("Jacob's Ladder"), two writers with impressively doomy credentials, "Deep Impact" confines much of its horror to television news reports and has a more brooding, thoughtful tone than this genre usually calls for. "Well, look at the bright side," says an astronaut in trouble. "We'll all have high schools named after us." And, as Duvall puts it while in outer space, contemplating both his own possible fate and the planet's: "Never be closer to home than we are right now."
PRODUCTION NOTES
DEEP IMPACT
Rating: "Deep Impact" is rated PG-13. It includes discreetly violent scenes and scattered profanity.
Directed by Mimi Leder; written by Michael Tolkin and Bruce Joel Rubin; director of photography, Dietrich Lohmann; special effects supervisor, Michael Lantieri; edited by David Rosenbloom; music by James Horner; production designer, Leslie Dilley; produced by Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 120 minutes. This film is rated PG-13.
Cast: Robert Duvall (Spurgeon Tanner), Tea Leoni (Jenny Lerner), Elijah Wood (Leo Biederman), Vanessa Redgrave (Robin Lerner), Maximilian Schell (Jason Lerner), Leelee Sobieski (Sarah Hotchner), Morgan Freeman (President Beck), James Cromwell (Alan Rittenhouse), Mary McCormack (Andrea Baker), Blair Underwood (Mark Simon), Dougray Scott (Eric Vennekor), Ron Eldard (Oren Monash), Alexander Baluev (Mikhail Tulchinsky), Jon Favreau (Gus Partenza), Charles Martin Smith (comet expert).
|
|
