The Chapmans are far from alone when it comes to scientists and artists who respect "Deep Impact," although usually praise has been reserved for its scientific merits.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 6, 2023

The vision of Morgan Freeman as the next President of the United States is virtually the only worthwhile idea to be found in Deep Impact.

| Feb 2, 2023

The movie spends so long plodding toward its catastrophic climax that you want to scream "Apocalypse! NOW!"

| Feb 2, 2023

The one weapon neglected is the usual one in disaster romps -- the script... Dialogue lacks zing. Characters lack substance. Up in the rocket with Duvall, nothing but clichés circulate; down on Earth, vacuity strikes.

| Feb 1, 2023

It drags considerably, and mainstream action audiences are likely to find it tedious and undeniably old-fashioned.

| May 8, 2019

The filmmakers want us to care about all these people, but we never really get to know them, and there is no sense of impending doom except when Leoni starts chugging martinis.

| Jun 26, 2018

Deep Impact isn't especially deep, and the extent of its impact seems limited. But it does turn out to be a fairly involving movie.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 25, 2018

Why isn't it scarier? Maybe its targets are too scattered, its final impact too shallow. Maybe director Mimi Leder couldn't locate the right overall tone. And maybe the two writers simply don't take the story very seriously.

| Jun 25, 2018

When all is said and done, it is precisely such lackluster imitations of real life that prevent this lightweight melodrama from leaving any deep, or lasting, impact of its own.

| Jun 25, 2018

These folks are so blase, you'd think that scientists had predicted pennies from Heaven instead of world's end within the year.

| Jun 25, 2018

If director Mimi Leder is really guilty of anything, it's of wasting three first-rate actors in underdeveloped roles while allowing Leoni's shell-shocked, unconvincing turn to become an embarrassment.

| Jun 25, 2018

The film is set up to be a ringing endorsement of the human species under pressure, but what comes across is something far less ennobling.

| Jun 25, 2018

Unfortunately Morgan Freeman, the compassionate, helpless U.S. president, and Robert Duvall, an astronaut who finds he hasn't passed his prime, have less time on-screen than Tea Leoni, who's unconvincing as a journalist.

| Jun 25, 2018

Director Mimi Leder admirably insisted on making the human relationships count for as much as the cheap thrills in this killer- comet movie. But the cheap thrills -- expensive thrills, actually -- are mostly what make Deep Impact fun to watch.

| Jun 25, 2018

[Deep Impact] is spectacular enough in its cataclysmic scenes of the planet being devastated by an unstoppable fireball, but proves far from thrilling in the down time spent with a largely dull assortment of troubled human beings.

| Jul 22, 2008

The first 40 minutes are the least bad.

| Jan 26, 2006

To its credit, the movie eschews cheap dramatics, but at times it eschews dramatics altogether.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 18, 2002

[Deep Impact] has a few good opening minutes, the biggest tidal wave you've ever seen in the closing minutes, and a cluster of little meandering melodramas in between.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 12, 2002

It would be nice to say that all this effort has turned Deep Impact into a model for getting top-drawer scripts for special-effects movies, but that's not the case.

| Feb 14, 2001

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jan 1, 2000