I recently re-watched Deep Impact, for the first time since its release. I remembered enjoying it the first time quite a lot and wanted to see how it held up after all those years. Verdict? I honestly can't imagine what I was thinking that first time and how I could ever call this film quality entertainment. Most likely my teenage brain stopped at "giant asteroid destroying Earth - sooooo cool!", because this film does not have much to offer beyond that.
With a global disaster movie you can go one of three basic ways. One, you can get serious and make it all about the big picture - realistic what-ifs, governments' reactions, impact on society, scientific background. Two, you can make it all about the characters - focus on a small group, real and interesting enough to make the audience genuinely care about them. Three, go for pure popcorn entertainment, with great production values and a huge spectacle that never takes itself too seriously. Combinations are possible too - my favorite example is World War Z (the book, not the film), which skillfully combines the first two approaches.
Deep Impact is a complete failure, no matter which template you compare it to.
The big picture part is unbelievably stupid, as if the writers had a single afternoon to come up with reasonably realistic ways this scenario might play out, and on top of that never bothered to talk to anyone who deals with actual real world disasters. The idea of everyone just going about their daily lives up to the last moment instead of putting a sizable portion of the nation's resources into preparing the majority of the population for the aftermath is too dumb for words. The idea of millions of people dying in the first impact because despite knowing months in advance about it, no one thought to evacuate the coast may be even worse.
The characters are equally awful. First of all, there are too many of them. There's only time for a brief introduction and as a result no one goes beyond a cardboard cutout with a couple of ham-handedly presented personality traits. The ones we're supposed to care about - Jenny and Leo with their families - are merely devices for generating artificial drama. Their idiotic actions are supposed to make the audience sympathize with them and feel their emotions. In my case they made me wish the tsunami would hurry up and wash them away already (with the sole exception of Jenny's mother, who I thought was rather interesting and well played).
Finally, Deep Impact is too cheap, too serious and too boring to be successful in the last category - pure, silly fun. The special effects are third rate, the humor non-existent and the plot slowly stumbles towards one of the least satisfying endings in the history of the disaster film genre. The climax should either tie up all the parts of the plot into a nice, satisfying package, or leave us wondering about what happens next - on the big, planetary scale, as well as with the characters we've come to care about. In Deep Impact the character are either killed by their unfathomable stupidity pretending to be deep sentiment and romantic natures, or they simply disappear, their future fate unknown and unimportant (though I imagine quite a lot of regrets in their future, concerning the needless deaths of their loved ones). The big picture is narrowed down to an optimistic speech and the image of reconstruction of a single part of a single country (which seems to stand for the entirety of human race in this case).
Ultimately the film that features one of the greatest natural disasters imaginable ends not with a bang, but with a disinterested whimper. Which could be considered quite an achievement, but not the kind I would give any stars for.
With a global disaster movie you can go one of three basic ways. One, you can get serious and make it all about the big picture - realistic what-ifs, governments' reactions, impact on society, scientific background. Two, you can make it all about the characters - focus on a small group, real and interesting enough to make the audience genuinely care about them. Three, go for pure popcorn entertainment, with great production values and a huge spectacle that never takes itself too seriously. Combinations are possible too - my favorite example is World War Z (the book, not the film), which skillfully combines the first two approaches.
Deep Impact is a complete failure, no matter which template you compare it to.
The big picture part is unbelievably stupid, as if the writers had a single afternoon to come up with reasonably realistic ways this scenario might play out, and on top of that never bothered to talk to anyone who deals with actual real world disasters. The idea of everyone just going about their daily lives up to the last moment instead of putting a sizable portion of the nation's resources into preparing the majority of the population for the aftermath is too dumb for words. The idea of millions of people dying in the first impact because despite knowing months in advance about it, no one thought to evacuate the coast may be even worse.
The characters are equally awful. First of all, there are too many of them. There's only time for a brief introduction and as a result no one goes beyond a cardboard cutout with a couple of ham-handedly presented personality traits. The ones we're supposed to care about - Jenny and Leo with their families - are merely devices for generating artificial drama. Their idiotic actions are supposed to make the audience sympathize with them and feel their emotions. In my case they made me wish the tsunami would hurry up and wash them away already (with the sole exception of Jenny's mother, who I thought was rather interesting and well played).
Finally, Deep Impact is too cheap, too serious and too boring to be successful in the last category - pure, silly fun. The special effects are third rate, the humor non-existent and the plot slowly stumbles towards one of the least satisfying endings in the history of the disaster film genre. The climax should either tie up all the parts of the plot into a nice, satisfying package, or leave us wondering about what happens next - on the big, planetary scale, as well as with the characters we've come to care about. In Deep Impact the character are either killed by their unfathomable stupidity pretending to be deep sentiment and romantic natures, or they simply disappear, their future fate unknown and unimportant (though I imagine quite a lot of regrets in their future, concerning the needless deaths of their loved ones). The big picture is narrowed down to an optimistic speech and the image of reconstruction of a single part of a single country (which seems to stand for the entirety of human race in this case).
Ultimately the film that features one of the greatest natural disasters imaginable ends not with a bang, but with a disinterested whimper. Which could be considered quite an achievement, but not the kind I would give any stars for.