Deep Impact (1998)
Deep Impact always sticks in my head as the unfunny Armageddon, but we can't all be funny- as my Dad always reassured me. Let me be clear though, not being Armageddon isn’t necessarily a bad thing, even though Armageddon is excellent popcorn cinema. They are, though, two films with an identical premise: a parallel pastiche of each other. The plot being that an asteroid hurtles hatefully towards Earth ready to wipe out humans easier than a teenager’s spunky sock smears millions from his stomach.
While it is still obviously Hollywood, Deep Impact is way more believable than Armageddon and less smart-arse satire than Don’t Look Up. The dread of inevitable doom is palpable in the varying human reactions to it, what the film does best is ask how much people need to know about what’s about to end them. The point of Don't Look Up is that you can do, or could have done, something. The question Deep Impact asks is when you’re fucked, how much truth do you want?
Mimi Leder directs a well cast, well acted and plausible (post pandemic particularly) picture portraying people’s fractured reaction to the apocalypse. What Deep Impact hit home hardest with me was the idea of selflessness. It focuses on that, not the worst of us. Largely, Deep Impact ruminates on what we can do to help people and I like that a lot. This approach also makes the film far more moving than it should be, especially giving its genre.
I could really really take the piss for the Hollywood aspects, particularly down the stretch, but I'm not going to because actually Deep Impact really hit me and moved me despite all its Hollywoodness. 9/10
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