DEEP IMPACT (49)

Directed by: Mimi Leder

Starring: Téa Leoni, Morgan Freeman, Elijah Wood, Vanessa Redgrave

The Pitch: The human race faces extinction as a massive asteroid hurtles irrevocably Earthwards.

Theo Sez: What with this and THE PEACEMAKER, Leder seems well on her way to becoming queen of the kinder gentler action movie - and it's certainly encouraging to see such relatively thoughtful fare occupying the early-summer TWISTER slot, box-office-wise ; sitting through it, however, is another matter. It's in the worthy mould of stuff like the 1983 TESTAMENT, sober but not particularly stimulating, with a cloying (oboe?) score and reconciliations aplenty in the face of disaster (the influence of INDEPENDENCE DAY?) : the heavyweight writing team rise to the occasion once or twice, notably in the Redgrave character's feeling of becoming "liberated" from Life, but mostly the End Of The World is a matter of lines like "I love you Mommy" and "It's been a pleasure serving with you, Commander", and the once-great Maximilian Schell doing strange, twitchy things with his eyes to suggest unfathomable Depths of Feeling. It seems unfair to laugh at it, really - it tries so hard to be sombre and discreet, and it's certainly ambitious ; but the problem is it never laughs at itself. There's potential for something awkward and offbeat (and touching, and wryly comic) in the gulf between people doing everyday things and facing the unimaginable - in details like the President making his doomsday speech off an autocue machine, or in the things we never even see, people shaving or cooking meals ; but the film never picks up on it. Basically, it treats the situation as rather maudlin soap-opera - whereas you feel it's much more likely to involve a rueful, chaotic kind of black farce.