Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

I learnt something important a couple of days ago… when everybody tells you not to bother seeing some movie, don't. Of course, having failed to follow that commonsensical advice in the past, I should have known better than to waste my time on Asteroid. Bad, bad, bad me!

But you have to understand the circumstances... I had been sleeping poorly and was feeling really tired of studying, working, epinionating and basically running my poor old 233 MHz brain over-clocked far above any acceptable safety limits. So I was looking for some brain-cooler, something to poor down my eyes and listen in mindless bliss at the merciful hiss as the steam flows out my ears. (Hey... bliss... hiss, that rhymes!)

I was looking for pure entertainment, a ride that would leave the higher functions of my poor tortured brain alone, and allow me to operate on bare essentials only. And I thought that a purely exploitative disaster movie with no deep messages or hidden meaning would fit the bill.

Alas, little did I realise that this movie contained plenty of those irritating flaws that really nagged my inner perfectionist. Enough so that I could not get a moment's peace from it's nagging voice. Add to that the constant objections of my inner scientist pointing out every implausibility, and the voice of reason pleading me to quit watching, and you'll see that my head was seriously overcrowded throughout most of the movie.

So what is the Asteroid about? Well it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's a big ugly asteroid in it... well, actually there are two big ones, and a whole lot of smaller gravel, but anyway... the world is facing an impending doom, the likes of which us mammals have not witnessed since the time we were scurrying about at the feet of the dinosaurs as fluffy little rodents.

This impending doom is discovered - at the last minute, of course - by and American astronomer Lily McKee (Annabella Sciorra) who...

Hey just wait a minute! You expect me to believe that a herd of angry asteroids just pops up in the neighbourhood of Earth without anyone noticing? Oh, except for the last-minute discovery of our dear All-American Lilly of course...

There they go again. You've just been introduced to the voice of the inner scientist. Now shut your mouth, I'm trying to write a review!

Well, technically speaking, inner voices don't have mouths. Clearly it's unreasonable to ask my dear colleague to close what he does not have!

You know that was just a figure of speech, inner perfectionist! Now both of you, just bugger off, and your questions may yet be answered!

Inner Scientist: That'll be the day...

Ok, where was I... Apparently, it was the Fletcher comet which pays us a visit every few thousand years or so that is the culprit. It passes through the asteroid belt this time, grabs along a few of the bigger ones, launching them on a direct trajectory towards Earth.

Inner S.: Oh... Now I see... *sigh*... where to begin... the trajectories, the sparseness of the asteroid belt, the basics of how gravity works...?

Don't start spoiling it again! Just pretend you know zilch about astronomy! You didn't allow me to enjoy the movie, so the least you can do is let me tell people about it without interruptions! I mean it, just quit that!

Inner S.: But the asteroids didn't even look like...

Shut up! Shut-up-shut-up-shut-up!

Voice of Reason: Now calm down, that's no way...

Grrr!

silence

*sigh* Ok, let's try this again. As I said, Lilly notices the impending doom, and quickly informs the appropriate government agency. After going through the necessary bureaucracy gauntlet on the phone, she finally reaches the male hero of the movie, who is some kind of a top dog at the aforementioned government agency.

Now we've already been introduced to this agency-boss in the opening sequence of the movie - and let me tell you, this is not your average eat-doughnuts-and-worry-about-golf-appointments kind of a boss, this is the kind that flies around in a helicopter assessing disasters and single-handedly rescuing people out of burning buildings while talking over the phone about disaster-aid with a congressman. All in all very believable character as you can see.

And here comes the single point in which this movie failed to follow the how-to-make-a-stereotypic-disaster-movie handbook. It doesn't have a nasty antagonist at all - there's no-one trying to undo the efforts of the heroes in their attempt to save mankind, no-one that the audience can really hate.

Inner Perfectionist: How about the director?

Now what did I just...

Inner P.: I couldn't resist... I'll be a good little inner voice from now on, I promise!

Well, ok, you do have a point I guess... One could say that the true antagonist of the movie was Bradford May, who had the misfortune of being the director of this abomination.

So what else was in the movie to keep the audience glued to their seats? Well, there was our heroine-astronomer's young son, who stayed over at his grand father's in Texas while mommy was saving the world. (As the gods of predictable cinema would have it of course, there was a big chunk of rock headed for that very location.) Then there was an assortment of other people, like the fire-fighter family, and the young just-out-of med-school couple who get involved in the fray. We get to know them all superficially, and, as an amicable audience, are supposed to feel oh-so connected and emotionally attached to them. Um... yeah.

I'll not spell out the entire plot to you, as there is no point - if you've ever seen a disaster movie, you can pretty easily imagine just about every plot twist. Besides, I bet your imagination can do a better job than the script.

The performances in the movie were… average. I won't say bad, as the actors and actresses didn't really have much to work with. The dialogue was probably automatically generated by some standard-dialogue-generator machine for disaster movies. It was predictable, stereotypic and...yawn... boring.

Inner P.: Now don't forget to mention the "dazzling" special effects

Yes, yes, I was getting to that!

As it turns out, asteroids appear to have a special talent of hitting some very specific targets like dams near large cities, large decorative architectural constructs within those cities (hey, it's much more dramatic that way!), and… well, you get the point. As an example of the…unique special effects used I'll take the dam scene - where the asteroid had destroyed the dam and the water was rushing to the city streets.

The city had already been evacuated, as those nifty astronomers had calculated the landing points of the target-seeking asteroids. So all is well? Of course not! What fun would that be? Our favourite pair of firemen were caught in a kind of a predicament within the city, with a broken fire-truck, an injured man to take care of, and no way to get out. Guess who comes to their rescue?

Why our don't-eat-doughnuts-hero-boss of course! (I'm getting really good at these accidental rhymes…) Against the advice of his employees, he grabs a car and drives to the city as (we are expected to believe this) you no longer have time to get there by air. No, I'm not kidding!

The hero-boss then finds the firemen, and they drive like there's no tomorrow trying to escape the huge tidal wave following them. Now I don't remember when I've seen such pathetic special effects - there's no way you can make believe that you are seeing a car escaping a tidal wave - you know you are looking at a miniature model of the city and the cars look like toy cars. Any minute you expect to see a glimpse of the guy pouring the bucket of water on the model. I watched in disbelief, as my Inner Perfectionist was screaming in agony.

Inner S.: Oh, go ahead, let the Inner Perfectionist get all the sympathy points! As if I was having fun! Tell them about the American fighter pilots flying really high in the sky hunting the asteroid with top-secret lasers, to make it EXPLODE! Tell them about...

Just hold it there! I don't think my poor readers can handle all that... They might end up loosing their sanity at the horror of it! Next thing you know they'll be hearing voices and blaming it all on me! So I'll wrap this up really quick.


Conclusion

If there's nothing else on the TV, read a book. Heck, read a book anyway, it's good for you.


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12