SUMMER: 1998. OMG! There’s a gigantic meteor headed toward Earth! Look again . . . SUMMER: 1998. OMG! There are TWO gigantic meteors headed toward Earth! ARMAGEDDON, ‘Pop’ flavored extinction from Michael Bay thru Touchstone/Disney* while director Mimi Leder for Paramount/Dreamworks puts out this more sober-sided global finale. JAWS producers David Brown & Richard Zanuck take first-position credit, even against Steven Spielberg at Dreamworks. It certainly doesn’t feel like a Spielberg movie*; nor for that matter Brown/Zanuck. What it very much does feel like is a Sherry Lansing-era Paramount production, a paradigm (or is it parody?) of when she was Head of Production. Uncredited among the film’s producers, the Lansing touch of highly polished secondhand goods, faux serious tropes (here, mostly ON THE BEACH/’59) and over-qualified talent given little to do, are all in place. Old pros to lend unearned gravitas; up-and-comers lucky to get ten lines of dialogue. No one actively disgracing themselves (other than composer James Horner and Téa Leoni’s hair), and the 1998 state-of-the-art special effects have their moments, but the film has almost no personality.
DOUBLE-BILL: *Compare and contrast with ARMAGEDDON. (not seen here)
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Except for the use of Spielberg mentored director Mimi Leder who briefly held a niche as the rare woman who crept onto the Hollywood short lists to helm action fare after a big Spielberg launch.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: People have varied opinions on what’s improved and what’s been lost with the move away from ‘practical’ effects and the rise of CGI. But no one doubts the improvement in Hollywood pizza since the ‘90s. Check out that disaster Charles Martin Smith is eating in the prologue.
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