Asteroid (1997)

Powerful

Memorable, crazy movie

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Vince Varia-the film's hair stylist. A name to forget. This is the person responsible for almost ruining a good film, because this was unquestionably the worst hair styling ever in any film. Most of us don't care that much about such trivialities, but when characters go through storms, floods, fires, and more, without so much as a hair out of place, it becomes too obvious not to notice even by the most casual observer.The film had a lot of assets. It does indeed involve the usual asteroid attack upon Earth, so story and characters are essential to making it worthwhile.And the story and characters do work. The actors are almost good enough to make us forget they don't have a hair out of place, but no one is that good, sorry.We can accept the extras in the background wanting to look good for their small pay, so they won't be embarrassed. We can easily overlook that, and even expect it. But for main characters to do so in the forefront make this otherwise good film a farce.In addition, there is way too much overkill. Okay, we have to serialize it some, and make disaster after disaster, threatening situation after threatening situation, and for a while it is well written, but eventually the writing goes way overboard, and we just stop caring. It is impossible to watch this in one sitting all the way through unless you are on drugs. It is just too ridiculous, and again a farce.However, the performances are convincing, and overall it is well written. Someone just got carried away. Put a leash on that collar. This actually sounds better than it looks (obviously the fault of Varia, who no sane director will ever use again).

This may be the worst "sky is falling" flick I have ever seen. It is a blatant copy of any number of previous such disaster films, minus the excitement and drama and interest. Michael Biehn, not exactly the most exciting actor who ever lived, heads all non-star cast as the world prepares for collision with an asteroid. As goofy as Armageddon was, I'd watch that 100 times over this low-brow pablum. At least hambone lead Bruce Willis dies at the end. Heck, I'd even watch that 1974 "world is coming to an end" craptacular EARTHQUAKE with Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner 100 times over this. I just love it when the aged Heston and Gardner get all muddy.

I saw this movie today and was hoping for something along the Armageddon line - okay, so this kind of movie tends to be predictable, but i think it's a guilty pleasure anyway. Boy was I disappointed. The story seemed to drag on and on - every time you think it's over, it's not (surprise surprise). You can almost see the producers' brains ticking to come up with some more plot to make up the allotted time. The premise is actually quite good, and believable, but the end result is poor. I felt no sympathy whatsoever for Elliot (the son), he was just an annoying brat to me. I also could not relate to the main characters - the firefighter's wife was pretty selfish, and the "romance" budding between Jack and Lilly has NO SPARKS whatsoever. Finally, is it really realistic to believe that after such a disaster, one woman would be able to get 1) a chopper 2) her own soldier and truck to go and look for her son and father when there's like ten thousand other people needing help? I think not. Waste of time, I didn't even stick around to watching the last five minutes.

Okay, so this is not the greatest "disaster movie" ever made. It's made for tv so it doesn't have the budget as Armageddon or Deep Impact did. Also, one must realize as someone pointed out before...it was made a good year before the others. It was really one of the first to broach this type of topic and I feel it did quite well. All movies have inaccuracies and many other movies have numerous more problems then this one. Implausable, perhaps; corny dialog, not the fault of the actors. The point that must be remembered is that it is a movie!!! Sure, the FEMA director probably wouldn't ever leave the office- perhaps he or she should! Sure, modern observatories are more computer run than anything (hello, then it wouldn't be a human interest movie), and the actors in it really do well with the story that they have. Michael Biehn and Annabelle Sciorra, screen actors, usually in supporting or secondary rolls are contending with lead rolls. Don Franklin, Jensen Daggett, and the others are all television actors in a story that had the scope to be a big screen film. Anthony Zerbe is the seasoned actor here, having done both film and tv, but he was cast in a minor roll and did pretty good with it. Comparing this to big budget large screen films is unfair. It is also unfair to judge actors based on weak script writing. They do what they can with what they're given. What this is is a movie that makes you feel good about being human and gives you hope that we can come together if there ever would be a major disaster.