Entertainment
Knock-Off ‘Armageddon’ Sci-Fi Classic Moves Streamers Next Month
Some movies get permanently stuck in the shadow of the louder hit that came out right beside them. That has always been a little bit true of Deep Impact, which arrived in 1998 just months before Armageddon turned asteroid panic into full-on popcorn spectacle. The two films are always linked, but they are really doing different things. One goes big and bombastic. The other aims for something sadder and more human.
Now, that more emotional disaster movie is heading to Paramount+ on April 1 as part of the service’s new movie lineup for the month. It is one of several catalogue titles joining the platform, and it stands out as one of the more interesting rewatch plays in the batch.
Directed by Mimi Leder, Deep Impact follows the discovery of a comet on a collision course with Earth and the political, personal, and global fallout that comes with it. Rather than focusing only on destruction, the film spends a lot of time with families, reporters, astronauts, and officials trying to process what may be the end of everything. That gives it a very different tone from the flashier disaster movies it is often grouped with.
The cast includes Téa Leoni as Jenny Lerner, Robert Duvall as Captain Spurgeon Tanner, Elijah Wood as Leo Biederman, Morgan Freeman as President Beck, Leelee Sobieski as Sarah Hotchner, Vanessa Redgrave as Robin Lerner, Maximilian Schell as Jason Lerner, and James Cromwell as Alan Rittenhouse.
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Is ‘Deep Impact’ Worth Watching?
Roger Ebert‘s review stated that Deep Impact has a built-in problem most disaster movies wisely avoid: if a comet the size of a mountain is really heading for Earth, the ending can only go so many ways. That tension gives the film a strong premise, and the review credits the screenplay for finding a workable path through it without completely spoiling the spectacle.
“Whether Earth is saved or doomed, or neither, I will leave you to discover for yourself. I personally found it easier to believe that Earth could survive this doomsday scenario than that the Messiah spacecraft could fly at thousands of miles an hour through the comet’s tail, which contains rocks the size of two-car garages, without serious consequences. On the disaster epic scale, on which “Titanic” gets four stars and “Volcano” gets 1.5, “Deep Impact” gets 2.5–the same as “Dante’s Peak,” even though it lacks a dog that gets left behind.”
Deep Impact crashes into Paramount+ on April 1.
- Release Date
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May 8, 1998
- Runtime
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120 minutes
- Director
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Mimi Leder
- Writers
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Michael Tolkin, Bruce Joel Rubin
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