Big Giant Rocks: Armageddon vs. Deep Impact
Armageddon vs. Deep Impact
Hollywood and the disaster movie have had a long and rocky relationship (hehehe, get it? rocky? Anyone?). Back in the 60’s and 70’s there were a slew of them with such titles as Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, and the myriad Airport movies.
They tapered off a bit but in the 90’s they came back with a big old bang. And it started another trend that would keep going till The Day After Tomorrow. This new batch of disaster added a new element, the big freaking rock hurtling towards Earth. Not an unheard of fear, and these new movies with modern special effects could really milk it for all it was worth.
From this new batch emerged two mega budget epics, Armageddon and Deep Impact.
The first to hit us was Deep Impact, the cuddlier and more people friendly death from the sky film. It tried to show us the human side of a disaster.
PLOT SHOT: Boy scientist discovers a comet that’s heading straight for the Earth. We try to stop it and President Morgan Freeman decides creates a lottery to see who can go into these big caves and live. People die…a lot.
Deep Impact was directed by Mimi Leder, who’s done a lot of TV work. This makes sense since this movie feels like something that would have come from the bowls of the Lifetime Movie Network. Leder would go on to direct the hungry for an Oscar “Pay It Forward”, a film that tries to cram down your throat every form of heart string tugging known to man.
The film wasn’t a complete disaster, but it shows that a big star cast doesn’t necessarily save you from an overblown story and script.
Now we move on to Armageddon, the bigger meaner big rock film, and by big rock I mean Aerosmith.
PLOT SHOT: A big asteroid is heading towards earth. The government finds the world’s best deep core drilling team to send into space and split the giant rock before it hits and we die. People die and Ben Affleck gets weepy.
The first thing to know about this movie is that it’s directed by Michael Bay and it’s produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. When you put those two together…well shit gets blown up usually.
But the thing is, Armageddon is not pretentious. It is what it is, a balls out summer flick that actually grabs you when you least expect it and makes you cry. People like to say it’s the less “emotional” of the two, but that’s not true, at least not to me.
Where Deep Impact feels forced, Armageddon just has great characters. Both films throw science out the window, Armageddon more so. But it doesn’t try to be a serious piece of cinema in that regard.
Disaster films are escapes. The good ones show you great visuals and people being heroes. You don’t go to watch people die; you go to see them really live.
-Jessica Dwyer
