The movie opens with a local high school astronomy class taking pictures for a local observatory. One of the students, Leo Biederman(Elijah Wood) notices a new star and the pictures get sent to the observatory where Marcus Wolf (played by Charles Martin Smith in a VERY BRIEF role)sees them, realizes this is something substantial and races down the long winding mountain road to spread the news. Too bad Mr. Up-too-long trucker with the country music on the radio and a can of Jolt Cola is on the same road.
Oops! That fireball is truly the bottommost role of Smith's celebrated career.
From here, we get introduced to the rest of the ensemble style cast.
Téa Leoni(fresh off her recently canceled show THE NAKED TRUTH) plays Jenny Lerner; an intern for MSNBC who is digging into the resignation of one of the President's(played by Morgan Freeman) cabinet(James Cromwell, fresh from his Oscar winning role in BABE). Vanessa Redgrave plays her mother; Maximilian Schell is her father. Bruce Weitz(Belker from HILL STREET BLUES) is her boss; Laura Innes(Carrie Weaver from ER) is one of her co-workers.
Jenny discovers that there is a cover-up regarding E.L.E.; what she first believes is the President's mistress and soon learns (thanks to some online research) stands for Extinction Level Event. At a press conference, President Beck reveals that there is an asteroid heading for earth and, if something isn't done, it will destroy life as we know it within a year.
But not to fear, because NASA is sending a crack team of astronauts from the United States and Russia to blow it up with a payload of nukes. The Messiah, as the craft is know, is piloted by Spurgeon 'Fish' Tanner(Oscar winner Robert Duvall); a man who has landed several times on the moon several. Among his fresh faced crew are Mark Simon(Blair Underwood from LA LAW), Oren Moash(Ron Eldard from MEN BEHAVING BADLY), Gus Partenza(Jon Favreau), and Andrea Baker(Mary McCormack, who was Howard Stern's wife in PRIVATE PARTS): all young guns ready to save the world for Mom and apple pie.
For the next 90 minutes, we are tormented by the seemingly perpetual melodrama as the countdown clock continues to click away. The Messiah fails on it's mission (losing an astronaut, blinding Eldard and causing a second chunk of rock to come hurtling towards Earth...as if one wasn't bad enough), the lethal lottery is held (1 million Americans chosen at random to live underground in the 'ark' for two years), Beiderman works out a deal with the state department that would allow his girlfriend (Leelee Sobieski) and her family (including a rather emaciated looking Denise Crosby as her mother) to be included in the 'ark'(of course, there's a technicality, you know).
It's an hour and 50 minutes of gnashing teeth, scenery chewing and some of the most boring characters you've ever come across. By the time this film mercifully ends, you don't really care who lives or dies because you never really care about the characters. They are never fleshed out enough to make the audience WANT to be concerned about them.
And the film is just way too predictable. We all know that Redgrave will kill herself before the asteroid hits; that Leoni and Schell will patch up their differences before the end; that Leoni will give up her spot in the bunker and give it to Innes and her young daughter; that Wood will race back home to be with his new wife(don't ask...it's another plot complication) and the Messiah and its' crew will make one last sacrifice for the good of all humanity.
In the end (which is truly the end), the smaller rock hits earth and wipes out a million or so folks (New York City and the whole East Coast too). But that's okay because, as the President says, "hope survives".
What an uplifting, enriching piece of fluff!
The special effects are fair at best. Even the long awaited destruction of New York is awash(pun intended) is really bad CGI and paper mache. Leoni and Schell being overwhelmed by a 1,000 foot tidal wave is absolutely laughable. Bruce Weitz sitting in Central Park, reading a newspaper as the water washes him out of the picture is equally comical. The Statue of Liberty being torn from it's pedestal brought back visions of the end of PLANET OF THE APES(a much better film by far). Even the cornball ending with the second asteroid being destroyed in a sky filled with brilliant sparks while Wood and Sobieski watch ala the ending of INDEPENDENCE DAY is preposterous.
But the best joke of all is the movie marquee, which shows that FIRE IN THE SKY and FROM HERE TO ETERNITY are playing there.
And plot holes and dumb stuff abounds. Smith races from his observatory with a computer disk labeled 'Wolf-Beiderman'. Not long after, he becomes Texas toast over the cliff. So, how did the government know to name the comment after the "two astronomers" who died in this crash? Off the computer disk...which MIRACULOUSLY survived the fireball? And what about those overzealous protesters outside of the ark? I've seen more active crowds at a Red Sox game. If this kind of cataclysm WAS actually going to occur, don't you think you have mass-shootings by the military just to maintain a semblance of law and order?
This mess of a movie was written by Bruce Joel Rubin (whose past writing credits include MY LIFE, GHOST and JACOB'S LADDER) and Michael Tolkin (whose work includes THE PLAYER and DEEP COVER). It's obvious that characterization and sci-fi action adventure are not their forte. The pacing is wrong, the dialogue is cliched and it's just real bad film-making. Except for the Dolby Digital sound mix, which was the saving grace of the film. Not much of a saving grace, but I found myself looking for anything to make this experience entertaining. And that was it.
Do yourself a big favor: save your money for ARMAGEDDON-the Bruce Willis asteroid vehicle which opens this July. I don't know if the plot is going to be any better, but it sure can't get any worse than this.