Deep Impact

1998 Action/Adventure

Mimi Leder (The Peacemaker) directed this science-fiction disaster drama about the possible extinction of human life after a comet is discovered headed toward Earth with the collision only one year away. Ambitious MSNBC reporter Jenny Lerner (Tea Leoni) stumbles onto the story, prompting a White House press conference. United States President Beck (Morgan Freeman) announces the government's solution: a team of astronauts will travel to the comet and destroy it. The team leader aboard the spaceship Messiah is Spurgeon Tanner (Robert Duvall), who was once the last man to walk on the moon. However, the mission fails, splitting off a chunk of the comet, now due to land in the Atlantic with the impact sending a 350-foot tidal wave flooding 650 miles inland, destroying New York and other cities. The larger part of the comet, hitting in Canada, will trigger an E.L.E. (Extinction Level Event), not unlike a "nuclear winter" as dust clouds block out the sun and bring life to an end. President Beck reveals Plan B: a cavernous underground retreat constructed to hold one million Americans, with most to be selected through a national lottery. Since teenage amateur astronomer Leo Biederman (Elijah Wood) discovered the comet, his family gets a pass to enter the cave, but his girlfriend Sarah (Leelee Sobieski) and her parents will be left behind. Meanwhile, still in space, Spurgeon Tanner devises a plan for a kamikaze-styled operation that could possibly save the Earth. Special visual effects by Scott Farrar and Industrial Light & Magic. more..

Director: Mimi Leder

Starring: Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave,Maximilian Schell

Reviews

  • Deep Impact confines much of its horror to television news reports and has a more brooding, thoughtful tone than this genre usually calls for.

    Elvis Mitchell - The New York Times

    19 January 2013

  • Leder establishes a syncopated rhythm unlike anything we're used to in a catastrophe spectacle.

    Lisa Schwarzbaum - Entertainment Weekly

    19 January 2013

  • You can enjoy the way they create little flashes of wit in the dialogue, which enlivens what is, after all, a formula disaster movie.

    Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

    19 January 2013

  • The latest in Hollywood's almost biblical procession of disaster films, Deep Impact tries with moderate success to be more than just the sum of its special effects.

    Kenneth Turan - Los Angeles Times

    19 January 2013

  • To its credit, the movie eschews cheap dramatics, but at times it eschews dramatics altogether.

    Mick LaSalle - The San Francisco Chronicle

    19 January 2013

Awards

  • Top Box Office Films

    ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards (1999)

  • Best Science Fiction Film

    Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (1999)

     
  • Favorite Actor - Sci-Fi

    Blockbuster Entertainment Awards (1999)

     
  • Bogey Awards, Germany (1998)

  • Golden Screen, Germany (1998)