Deep Impact

If ever a film begged--nay, pleaded--to be a mini-series, that film is Deep Impact. It begins with the discovery of a comet on a collision course with earth, then flashes forward a year as the comet's existence is revealed to the earth's population, then flashes forward a few months to an experimental spacecraft beginning its mission to deflect the comet from its trajectory, then flashes forward another few months as a plan to save humanity by hiding a million people in underground caves is set in motion. That's enough flashing to give you the disorienting sensation of sitting through a cinematic strobe light. Deep Impact wants to be a heroic disaster epic, examining the effect of impending devastation on individual people and their relationships, but that can only happen if we get to know the characters a little. Every sub-plot--a reporter (Tea Leoni) trying to reconcile with her family, two high school sweethearts who make the leap from tentative hand-holding to marriage in a matter of seconds, and so on--feels forced into a chunk of time far too small to do it justice. In fact, it feels like six hours of raw footage hacked to ribbons to meet the imperatives of feature film length. It's not exactly a bad film; it's just about one-third of an acceptably engrossing one. Not recommended. (S. Renshaw)[DVD Review--October 5, 2004--Paramount, 121 min., PG-13, $14.99--Making its second appearance on DVD, Mimi Leder's 1998 sci-fi disaster Deep Impact: Special Collector's Edition includes audio commentary by Leder and visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar, the behind-the-scenes featurette “Making an Impact” (12 min.), the “making-of” featurette “Preparing for the End” (9 min.), the six-minute scene-specific featurette “Creating the Perfect Traffic Jam,” the five-minute retrospective “Parting Thoughts,” a photo gallery, and trailers. Bottom line: a commentary track and a half-hour's worth of featurettes is not terribly “special,” so if you have the initial release, you can probably skip this one.]