Deep Impact

1998 / DVD

SF elements

Review

TV news researcher Jenny Lerner [Téa Leoni] uncovers what looks like a juicy political scandal, maybe even involving the President [Morgan Freeman]. But the story is much bigger than that. A comet has been discovered on collision course with the Earth. It will hit in about a year. A special shuttle mission is being sent to blow it up, but if that fails, all life on earth will be destroyed...

In some sense this is a remake of the classic The Day the Earth Caught Fire . That was a tale of impending global annihilation centred around a newspaper office, this is a similar tale centred mainly around a TV newsroom. It is significantly better than the gung-ho Armageddon , released the same year. The several attempts to destroy the comet leave you guessing right up until the end whether the special effects guys will get to waste the entire planet, or only bits of it. But most of those special effects are confined to the last few minutes; the rest of the time is taken up by the story of ordinary people being quietly, and believably, heroic, as they face the end of the world.

Rating: 3