1998 disaster film Deep Impact confronts mankind with the ultimate disaster – extinction level event in the form of comet that is about the strike Earth and do their species what another such event did to dinosaurs 65 millions ago. Directed by Mimi Leder, this film owes much to classic 1970s disaster films, but even more to another, more recent disaster film, 1997 Titanic. The general formula is borrowed from Cameron’s film – cataclysmic event shown from different perspectives, but framed by the love story between two teenagers, played by Elijah Wood and Leilee Sobieski. The execution is, however, worse – spectacular scenes are depicted only at the very end, forcing the audience to endure rather forgettable drama and uneven acting, especially from Tea Leoni as reporter in scenes that look like overlong commercial for MSNBC cable channel. It is rather understandable why this film quickly sank into oblivion compared with Michael Bay’s similarly-themed Armageddon.
RATING: 4/10