The plot reminds of Armageddon, the special effects make me think of 2012 and Day After Tomorrow, but the fact is this movie came out before those three did, and before a lot of other movies that are about pretty much the same thing.

Deep Impact & Armageddon were actually both released the same year, and feature very similar plots. IMDB gives both of them a score of 6 stars, though Armageddon leads by .4. Why? What did that movie have that this one didn't? Both of them had plenty of well-known actors (of which none appear in both movies, that I can see). Maybe Armageddon had more action, or maybe it was because it had Bruce Willis (at the time no doubt peaking in fame thanks to the third part of the Die Hard series) but this one certainly had better special effects! It's a shame it was released in the shadow of Armageddon, even though it came out first, cause it's good. At IMDB Armageddon has more than twice as many votes, which goes to show that the movie was, if not better, apparently more popular.

Btw, just for fun, let's compare the summaries of Deep Impact and Armageddon from IMDB...

Unless a comet can be destroyed before colliding with Earth, only those allowed into shelters will survive. Which people will survive?

After discovering that an asteroid the size of Texas is going to impact Earth in less than a month, NASA recruits a misfit team of deep core drillers to save humanity.

What they don't mention in the summary is that the comet in Deep Impact is the size of New York and weighs around 50 billion tons. Maybe that would crack the ratings up a bit? In the summaries above they don't really work in Deep Impact's favor, so maybe it all boils down to bad marketing for the former. Overall the plots aren't so so different huh, though this one I feel has more depth (and I don't mean just the title) than Armageddon does. There it's just about the heroes, here it's about... well, just keep reading. I'll get to that. There's got to be some story as to why two so similar movies came out the very same year. Something about the millennium coming up? Then why were there not many more of these in 99? Anyway, I'll set the comparisons aside and focus on the movie, which was a good one.

In difference to Armageddon (there I go again) there's not one set character we follow, but rather a few, and all of them play important or less important roles. Some of them don't really have much to do with the incident at all, but nevertheless they gain screen time priority. In the face of disaster, we learn about people. We see how they react, though of course it's one of those movies were we get a very one-sided view. There's drama, there's tragedy, there's love, there's heroism, and there's beautiful filming and special effects. It was definitely worth watching. It feels strange seeing Morgan Freeman in the movie as president though, since he's... well, black, but I suppose this movie was ahead of it's time in many ways. Not least in the special effects department.

Usually when I watch movies from pre-millenium, the special effects that were so amazing at the time don't really cut it any longer, but in this one it's almost the other way around. The special effects here were better than they are in many of the modern doomsday movies I've seen. It had to have had a big budget, cause when the huge wave sweeps in over New York it's a powerful sight to behold. Either that or they just had a team of great people working on the movie. If you haven't seen it yet, you better. If you've seen Armageddon, and you liked it, then you'll probably like this one too. If you're tired of movies like this, then... go watch something with Donnie Yen in it, and if you don't like the kind of movies Donnie Yen makes, then... why are you reading my reviews in the first place? ;) Until next time!

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

June, 2022

Deep Impact: The one that lost to Armageddon.

It's a good one, though I see why it did.

It's more speech and patriotism and diplomacy than actual carnage.

The final scene when the wave hits and all is wiped away may be pompous (I'm not sure the water looks as realistic as it would've today btw - something strange about the fringes/bubble foam at the forefront of it - like that'd be present more with smaller masses of water, or the water's just not detailed enough or always taking the right path first in smaller areas)... but leading up to that there's just not so much action.

There's a lot of talking, and fearing, and heroism, and good people who die hard, and in the end people who reconcile, and survive for love, or die with ditto, but there's no VILLIAN. There's no victory. There's no end.

There's nothing to rejoice over.

Like The Day After it's more like an honest (albeit made all the more dramatic for film) sequence of events of what COULD come to be if a massive asteroid just happens to cross paths with our homeworld.

It's a good movie, but I think I appreciated it more the last time I saw it.

It has its emotional moments - especially at the end - but despite Morgan Freeman's awesome speeches, despite the space crew's heroic battles with that block of stone; despite Jenny's special moment with her father... it just comes across a little too ordinary somehow.

Like we need a perceptible threat with a mind of its own to really hone in on, and focus all our wrath and bitterness on during the most post-apocalyptic moments.

The filming's great, and the actors are great, but nature's overtaking the world again, and it'll leave a deep impact. Matter of fact.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle