Double Feature: Deep Impact & Armageddon

Recently we had an interesting "compare-and-contrast" double feature over two evenings. We re-watched Deep Impact and Armageddon, 1998's two "oh my God! the earth is about to be smashed by a meteor" movies.

     First things first: Deep Impact is about people; Armageddon is about technology. The science in Deep Impact is somewhat more accurate. That NASA acquiesed in helping to push Armageddon out to an unsuspecting public suggests they're loonier than we've given them credit for.

     Téa Leoni gives an absolutely wonderful and nuanced performance as the newswoman in Deep Impact. She's ably supported by the likes of Vanessa Redgrave, Morgan Freeman, and Elijah Wood and Leelee Sobieski as the teenagers. Geologist Gene Shoemaker --- who figured out as a grad student what caused the thing in Arizona we now know as Meteor Crater --- acted as advisor on the film. It's a real story, with a beginning, a middle, an end, with intelligent characters doing the best they can under the circumstances. Best line: Mary McCormack as one of the astronauts, thinking about their choices, says, "Look on the bright side. We'll all get high schools named after us."

     On the other hand, in terms of emotional manipulation Armageddon is much more effective. It didn't help that there's a shot about nine minutes into the movie, at the end of a meteor shower hitting New York, of both towers of the World Trade Center in flames --- painfully too close to what we saw in real life only three years later. And, as I've observed recently, there's a shot in this movie at Launch Pad 34A, where the Apollo I fire occurred, that always leaves me in tears --- not because of the content of the scene but rather because of the setting and the realization that we haven't served their memory at all well. It's got Bruce Willis, running his usual emotional (non-)range, Ben Affleck, Steve Buscemi, and Billy Bob Thornton, giving the best performance of the lot. It's also got, as the sole respite from testosterone-laden grimaces) Liv Tyler. (Though Tyler appears to exist in the script for two purposes: to look fetching, and to wail "that's my daddy up there!" at the appropriate moments.) Best line: Buscemi, playing the brilliant, but crazy, geochemist, "Why do I do this? Because the money's good, the scenery changes, and they let me use explosives."

     They've both got their good points, but Armageddon is a thrill ride, while Deep Impact is a movie.