A physical and artistical joke

Rating: 2/10 (16 January 2000)

If the American flag would have been on the payroll of this movie, it would have probably gotten more money than Bruce Willis himself; in every third scene or so it sure is to pop up. Oh yes, our American, down to earth boys are going to save the world, who else? The wipeout of a city like Paris is only good for a nice FX and that it might be useful to get help from the rest of the world never occurs to the NASA scientists. Well, if you've seen "Deep Impact" you know the drift.
Then let's talk about physics - the way it is treated in this movie would make Mr. Newton spin in his grave. Gravity on an asteroid the size of Texas? And apparently just as much as on earth, the way the protagonists moved? Well, to get that going the asteroid would have to have the weight of Earth on as much room as Texas has. The density would be so high that no matter if you used a 10000 watt drill or a toothpick to dig a hole the result would be the same.
But somehow the gravity also seemed to fade out on story-line convenience, when one of the landing vehicles is able to drift over a wide valley on the asteroid by a little thrust of its boosters. We are not even talking about "why" these vehicles were armed with heavy guns.
Now about the actors: Liv Tyler is a fine young woman, although not a fine young actress. Bruce Willis as her father is like Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ghandi. Overall the entire cast seemed to not really know what they actually should be portraying, so the fault might not be on the actors, but on the bad storyline.
If this movie would not pretend that it has to be taken serious, you could actually enjoy it - as a movie rental for a boring Saturday night. But if you are into patriotism go for it, anyway.