Deep Impact (1998) vs. Armageddon (1998)

By ScottDS

In 1999, we had two CGI bug movies. In 1997, we had two volcano movies. And in 1998, we had two “killer asteroid” movies: Mimi Leder’s Deep Impact and Michael Bay’s Armageddon. They both have their good qualities and bad qualities. While the former is a heartfelt, human story set against the backdrop of impending disaster, the latter is… well, it’s what Michael Bay does best – it’s the id to Deep Impact’s superego!

In Deep Impact, Elijah Wood plays high school student Leo Biederman, who discovers a comet that appears to be on a collision course with Earth. Cut to one year later as reporter Jenny Lerner (Téa Leoni) investigates what she thinks is a sex scandal. However, the mysterious “Ellie” in question is actually “E.L.E.” – extinction-level event. Her investigation forces President Beck (Morgan Freeman) to make his announcement earlier than planned: in short, a comet the size of New York City is heading towards Earth. A joint U.S.-Russian spacecraft – the Messiah – has been constructed to intercept the comet and destroy it with nuclear weapons. Leading the mission is veteran NASA commander Spurgeon Tanner (Robert Duvall). Unfortunately, one of the astronauts is killed and the mission fails: the comet splits into two smaller pieces, both on a course for Earth.

President Beck reveals that the US has been building giant underground “arks” and that 800,000 Americans have been randomly selected to join 200,000 pre-selected scientists, engineers, etc. Leo and his family are selected but Leo’s girlfriend Sarah (Leelee Sobieski) and her parents are not. Leo and Sarah get married so that she can come along but her parents are omitted from the list and she decides to stay with them. Jenny gives up her seat on an evac helicopter to a co-worker and visits her estranged father to reconcile. Upon reaching the ark, Leo goes back for Sarah and her family and manages to catch up with them. The smaller comet fragment impacts near Cape Hatteras destroying much of the Eastern seaboard. Meanwhile, the Messiah crew sacrifice themselves to destroy the larger fragment and the pieces break up in the atmosphere. President Beck appears in front of the damaged Capitol building and urges us to begin again.

This is a good movie. At times, it’s a very good movie. The “Ellie”/“E.L.E.” mystery is deftly handled, the characters are decent and likeable people (some more than others), and the pacing is spot on: we’re in and out in two hours. Above all, it’s a human story and the visual effects are the supporting player, not the leading man. This was the second film for TV veteran Mimi Leder, whose previous film The Peacemaker had been released a year earlier. She handles the small moments as well as she does the big ones, ably assisted by executive producer Steven Spielberg who reunites with his Jaws producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown. Unlike today when all the big genre movies seem to share the same half-dozen writers, this movie was written by two guys known for much smaller work: Michael Tolkin (The Player and Rapture) and Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost and Jacob’s Ladder) – not exactly regulars on the Comic-Con circuit.

Téa Leoni is okay – neither bad nor great – as an MSNBC reporter, back when that network was in its infancy. Morgan Freeman fits the role of president like a glove. Sure it’s a cliché now for Freeman to be “The Authority Figure” but I imagine there was still some novelty to it back then. No doubt more than one comedian has joked about the fact that “we finally get a black president and the world goes to s---!” Elijah Wood is fine as a high school astronomy geek (why do geeks in movies all have Jewish last names?) and, watching the film for the first time in years, I’d forgotten how little he’s actually in it. He disappears for large sections in the middle, but such is life in an ensemble. Robert Duvall is a warm presence as Tanner, nicknamed “Fish.” He’s tough when he needs to be, but also a surrogate father figure for the astronauts under his command.

Vanessa Redgrave and Maximilian Schell play Jenny’s divorced parents, Robin and Jason. This is the kind of subplot that would be non-existent in a movie like this today. Robin is lonely and depressed and Jason is remarried to a much younger woman. Since the aforementioned lottery doesn’t include anyone over 50, Robin kills herself. The reconciliation scene on the beach between Jenny and Jason is nicely done. The Messiah astronauts feature some familiar faces, including Blair Underwood, a young Jon Favreau, and Ron Eldard, who unfortunately is saddled with the arbitrary ageism conflict with Duvall. Admittedly, the scene in which the astronauts say goodbye to their families for the last time brings a tear to one’s eye. Omnipresent character actors like Kurtwood Smith, Richard Schiff, and James Cromwell also make appearances.

Unfortunately, the first adjective that came to mind after finishing this movie was “slight.” Certain things are either rushed or never seen. We never see the construction of the arks, nor do we see the last-ditch effort to destroy the comet with missiles: we only hear about it on the radio after it fails. They can’t show everything but in a movie about the end of the world, sometimes it’s nice for the audience to actually see how we prepare for it. James Horner’s score is treacly to say the least, and ILM’s visual effects are okay. The killer tidal wave (seen in the trailers) hasn’t aged very well. The best effect might be the real traffic jam staged by the filmmakers on Virginia State Route 234, though I could NEVER believe that Leo would actually find Sarah and her family in the middle of it!

And then... Armageddon! There once existed a geek-friendly magazine called Cinescape, before the Internet rendered it obsolete. One issue featured a chart comparing these two movies: Deep Impact was labeled “A sci-fi version of On the Beach” while Armageddon was labeled “Con Air meets The Rock in outer space!” And it is. An asteroid the size of Texas is 18 days away from colliding with Earth. NASA decides to bury a nuclear device inside the asteroid that will split it in two, with each fragment flying safely past the Earth. Since it’s apparently harder to train astronauts to drill than it is to train drillers to be astronauts, NASA director Dan Truman (Billy Bob Thornton) decides to hire the world’s best oil driller: Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis), who brings along his crew of numbskulls. Harry’s daughter Grace (Liv Tyler) just happens to be in love with one of the roughnecks, A.J. (Ben Affleck). The crew undergoes a short and rigorous training program and after an asteroid fragment destroys Shanghai, the plan is revealed to the public.

The crew takes two shuttles – the Freedom and the Independence – and after a seizure-inducing side trip to the Russian space station, Freedom lands safely while Independence is presumed destroyed. Long story short, A.J. and the surviving Independence crew use their mobile drilling vehicle (the “Armadillo”) to reach Harry’s team. During a subsequent rock storm, the bomb’s remote trigger is damaged which means one man has to stay behind. (Naturally.) A.J. picks the short straw but Harry pulls his air hose and shoves him back inside the shuttle. After Harry and Grace say their heartfelt goodbyes, he blows up the asteroid, which indeed splits in two with both pieces dodging the planet. The film ends with home movie footage of A.J. and Grace’s wedding. And, uh... America!! [smile]

Allow me to quote from the Criterion DVD booklet (yes, this movie has a home in that exalted collection). This is Jeanine Basinger, film historian and Michael Bay’s professor at Wesleyan: “It is true that Armageddon, a perfect example of Bay’s work, illustrates his ‘take-no-prisoners’ form of storytelling, in which he trusts an audience to figure things out. (One of its strengths is its minimum of dreadful exposition that over-explains the inevitable pseudoscience.) Yes, it gives audiences a lot to absorb. Yes, it cuts quickly from place to place, person to person, event to event. But it is never confusing, never boring, and never less than a brilliant mixture of what movies are supposed to do: tell a good story, depict characters through active events, invoke an emotional response, and entertain simply and directly, without pretense.”

To quote Jack Benny, “Well!” Truthfully, this movie is Citizen Kane compared to some of Bay’s subsequent work. At this point, he still had Jerry Bruckheimer to keep him under control. Bay’s style might be filmmaking on steroids but in 1998, he was only just starting to overdose! Bruce Willis can often be on autopilot, but here he’s the consummate everyman-turned-hero. Ben Affleck knows exactly what this movie is and he even asked Michael Bay why they couldn’t just train astronauts to drill. Bay’s response? “Shut the f--- up!” This film was also my first exposure to Michael Clarke Duncan and Owen Wilson, who are seen here in their “purest” form: the gentle giant and the likable bumpkin. Peter Stormare is a blast as Lev, the loopy Russian cosmonaut who hitches a ride after the space station is destroyed. Will Patton is Harry’s “aww shucks” sidekick. I used to think Patton was naturally like that but after watching The Postman and No Way Out, I realize he often overacts and this movie is the outlier!

On the Criterion commentary, two NASA gurus spend most of the time nitpicking the scientific flaws, which are many and varied. My biggest problem is this: so the asteroid is the size of Texas but what if a fragment the size of, say, Rhode Island hits the Earth? It’d still be an extinction level event! Oh, and we still have the clichéd scientists versus the military conflict as General Kimsey (Keith David) initiates “secondary protocol” to detonate the bomb remotely, much to the chagrin of Truman. This leads to the requisite bomb defusing scene and shuttle pilot Sharpe (William Fichtner) just happens to have a gun... in space! There’s something to be said about getting the most out of your premise but in a movie about the possible end of the world, these subplots are rather unnecessary. Seriously, a good 20 minutes could’ve been cut from the movie with little to no effect! Technical aspects are top notch all around, including the Oscar-nominated visual effects by the late Dream Quest Images and Trevor Rabin’s “America: F--- Yeah!” score.

This brings up another issue. There’s nothing wrong with blue-collar working-class heroes… but Bay doesn’t have to denigrate scientists to make the blue-collar guys look good. Here’s action movie scholar and author Eric Lichtenfeld: “How hard would it have been to craft a scene where those ideas are introduced, and for logistical reasons, none of them are tenable, and then Bruce Willis and his team are the only option, as opposed to showing why all those ideas are ridiculous? It’s not that the movie can’t have a butch hero stopping the [asteroid]; the problem is that you don’t need to make Bruce Willis look good by making the smart people look bad. It’s a very cynical view of the audience, and it’s a view of science and intellectualism that is full of contempt, but that’s what Michael Bay does when he talks about critics, or his education.” No argument from me!

So what do we have? Two movies about a similar subject, with large ensemble casts, and some heartfelt moments. Deep Impact isn’t exactly subtle but I give 1st place in manipulation to Armageddon. The shot of the kids running with their toy space shuttles past an old poster of JFK? Just... wow. The former was smaller than I’d remembered while, oddly, the latter was just as entertaining (and dumb) as I’d remembered. Deep Impact is the better quote unquote “film” while Armageddon is glorious junk food... and admittedly, 90s nostalgia plays a part here, too.

“The fate of the planet is in the hands of a bunch of retards I wouldn't trust with a potato gun.”

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Film Friday: The Island (2005)

The Island is an odd film. It’s shiny and pretty with a story that moves along nicely and which raises some interesting philosophical questions. Yet, it’s also strangely lifeless. . . welcome to the world of Michael Bay. . . look, shiny! I say strangely because a film about the harvesting of human being for their organs should have a much stronger emotional impact than this film does. Ultimately, I think this is the result of several bad decisions.

** spoiler alert **

The Plot

The Island is the story of a group of people who think they’ve survived a contamination holocaust. They live in a sealed community and are taken care of by an all-powerful government which controls what they wear, what they eat, and what they do - the government seems obsessed with their health and diet. Every so often, the government runs a lottery. The winner of the lottery is allowed to leave the compound to live on “the island,” the last uncontaminated paradise on Earth. That sounds great, only the truth is somewhat less pleasant.

One of the survivors is Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor). He’s sort of restless. Indeed, he raises complaints about the food and the lack of color in his clothing (everyone wears white), and he goes to places he shouldn’t. Because of this, he one day ends up outside the compound. What he finds is a medical center and the latest winner of the lottery is there being cut open so they can remove his organs. Lincoln Six and his quasi-girlfriend Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) then escape the compound. Naturally, they are pursued. As they flee, they discover that the world is fine and they are not survivors of anything, they are clones who have been grown so their organs can be harvested.

Why The Film Feels Hollow

If you’re looking for a mindless way to blow a couple hours, you’ll probably like The Island. After a bit of a science-fictiony start, the film quickly devolves into one long chase scene. It’s not bad in that regard. But if you’re hoping for more, you will likely be disappointed. What makes this strange is that the film is set up to deliver so much more, but it just never does. Indeed, it’s very hard to care about the characters or to feel their plight. And for a film about humans being raised on an organ farm just to be parted out when they are needed, there’s remarkably little outrage or revulsion to be had from the film because the film never hits you in the gut or makes you uncomfortable. Here’s why:

● Mistake No. One: The film is too clean. Indeed, there isn’t really a moment that shocks us. The compound is nice. The people are friendly. The bad guys seem apologetic, and the one scene that should be grotesque, when Michael Clarke Duncan accidentally wakes up as they are removing his organs, is more comedic than ugly. Indeed, there’s no blood and there’s nothing to make you sick. It would have been much more powerful if you had been slapped in the face with something graphic to give you a sense of the immorality of what was going on. For example, a pile of corpses would have been good (e.g. The Running Man) or a scene where you watched helplessly as Duncan awaited his death. As it is, the viewer is never really confronted with the true nature of what is happening.

● Mistake No. Two: The characters are less than human. It’s very hard to care about the characters in this film. Part of that is that they aren’t really presented as complete human beings. They have no hopes and no dreams and no family. They don’t even have boyfriends/girlfriends because they have no sex drive – it’s been removed from their programming. This makes it difficult to “feel” how their deaths are all that sad because there is no loss for you to consider.

● Mistake No. Three: The film itself shuts down most of the debate. For example, the film points out that clones don’t know what God is. This essentially stops any discussion of the human soul. The film points out that only rich people can afford this, but then it doesn’t show any poor people suffering because of it, so that issue is for naught. The film says that the reason these clones are conscious (the corporation lies to the world and says they aren’t) is because they found the body dies without consciousness. What does that say about the meaning of life? The film doesn’t address it. Instead, it buries the point in talk about losing military contracts. All the interesting issues are one-liners which get left undeveloped on the table.

● Mistake No. Four: Finally, we come to the big mistake: the film lets the audience off the hook. The film does this in several ways. First, it makes the people who guard the clones jackasses. It’s therefore easy for the audience to disassociate themselves from these people. Disassociation allows the audience to ignore the moral question by thinking that it doesn’t apply to them because they don’t see themselves as being like the jackasses.

Then we learn that what they are doing is either illegal or quasi-illegal. Indeed, we are shown how the company lies to regulators and investors alike by telling them that the clones are never allowed to become conscious. This makes it even easier for the audience to disassociate themselves from this. Instead of needing to face the ugly reality that society accepts harvesting human organs and wondering how we would feel in that world, this decision to make this a rogue corporation tells the audience this is not something society accepts - it’s just another villain. This means our morality is never questioned. Even the hired killer assures us that this is wrong, and if the most immoral parts of society agree that this is wrong, then it becomes impossible for the audience to feel threatened that this might one day become reality.

The final error in this regard was the happy ending. The heroes escape from the clutches of the farm and then return to free their fellow livestock. Presumably, this will end the practice. Everyone lives happily ever after and the audience never needs to worry about finding themselves in a world where humans are grown so we can harvest their organs because this was just an aberration. Whew!

This is why this film looks pretty, but feels hollow. A film like this should be a deeply uncomfortable experience that leaves people questioning their own morality and wondering if their own world could following the same path. This film never achieves that. In fact, it never tries. To the contrary, all of the philosophical/moral points the film sets up get neutered before they can be developed, and the film keeps assuring the audience that what they are seeing could never really happen. Essentially, the film keeps telling the audience, “Don’t worry, this doesn’t concern you,” when it should be telling the audience, “This could be you already!” Even on a character level, the film takes away our ability to care by stripping out any real sense of loss if these clones die. In the end, what should have been a gripping, horrifying philosophical-thriller turned out to be just an action film involving clones.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...