Deep Impact 1998

     Secretary Alan Rittenhouse has suddenly quit his government position and he says it is because his wife is ill.  MSNBC journalist Jenny Lerner learns he is getting ready to leave on his yacht and it looks like he will be gone for a long time?  The real story is that a meteor was discovered a year before by a high school student and an astronomer.  The meteor is the size of Mt. Everest and it is on a collision course with Earth.  The acronym for this type of occurrence is ELE, Extinction Level Event.  The US government is sending a joint US-Russian team of astronauts into space to intercept the meteor, plant explosive devices and attempt to blast it into pieces.  Unfortunately, the plan doesn’t work and the meteor splits into two sections instead.  There is now one smaller piece and one large piece.  The smaller piece is due to hit the Atlantic with enough impact to send a 350 foot tidal wave 650 miles inland.  The larger part will hit Canada and the dust clouds will cause a “nuclear winter.”  All governments across the Earth are working together to select a set number of people to be transported to underground safe zones for two years.  This will save mankind since the plants and animals will quickly disappear after the impact of the meteor on the Earth’s surface. 

     Certain groups of people are featured and their lives are told more broadly to draw you into this drama.  We have to care about the people in this film in order to appreciate the catastrophe.  If we don’t care, everything becomes just illustrations of what this type of disaster would bring.  3* (This movie is OK)

120 min, Action directed by Mimi Leder with Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave, Morgan Freeman, Maximilian Schell, James Cromwell, Ron Eldard, Jon Favreau, Laura Innes, Leelee Sobieski.

Note:  Imdb 6.1 out of 10, 48% critic 43% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 2*.

Special Note:  A lottery is used to select the people to be saved.  In the US 800,000 people will be selected and 200,000 previously chosen people.  Also, genetically viable populations of significant animals and the seeds of every species of plant will be saved.  No names of people over the age of 50 will be included in the lottery.