Bullet Points: Asteroid
Can you name the best Michael Biehn space related action movie that begins with the letter A? That is easy, Aliens… but I don’t have any Bullet Points for Aliens. How about the second best Michael Biehn space related action movie that begins with the letter A? That is also easy, Asteroid, and boy are you lucky because I do have some Bullet Points for the 1997 movie that may or more likely may not be scientifically accurate, but still manages to be out of this world. Let’s look to the stars, both the celestial and Hollywood kind, as we take a journey to Asteroid.
- Meteor – Asteroid premiered as a television movie in 1997 and one of the most important things a TV movie can do is have an opening that hooks the audience and keeps fingers off the remote. Asteroid opens with an action set piece showing a meteorite causing a semi to crash and explode. Without any time to breathe there is a rescue attempt that just so happens to have FEMA director Jack Wallach (Biehn) save lives amidst the devastation. You might be worried about television budgets and cheap effects, but I should let you know that Asteroid won an Emmy for Outstanding Special Visual Effects (ok, so it tied with the Armand Assante led The Odyssey but the effects are pretty good for 1997.) Watching a semi and barn blow up, and having Jack almost die (twice!) before the first commercial break insured people wouldn’t flip over to the Meryl Streep/Fred Ward TV movie …First Do No Harm airing on a rival network. Man, network TV was bringing it in February 1997, Michael Biehn vs. Fred Ward!
- Deep Impact – Dr. Lily McKee (Annabella Sciorra) is an astronomer at the National Observatory who discovers that the course of the Fletcher Comet that comes around every 4000 years is slightly askew. The path is going to come dangerously close to planet Earth and disrupts the orbit of some big bad asteroids, namely Helios and Eros. Helios is the smaller of the asteroids and is projected to hit Kansas City, which triggers FEMA to evacuate and triggers an evacuation action set piece. Asteroid uses local KC fireman Ben Dodd (Don Franklin) and his family so the audience can experience the physical and emotional stress. Helios has the aim on par with the finest sharpshooters because the space rock hits dead center of a Kansas City dam (why the filmmakers thought that everybody would believe a Hoover style dam would be in Kansas City is not germane to this review) and I couldn’t have been more excited. The awesomeness of the flood waters destroying the city (with the help of miniatures) will never get old, especially when the visuals include Jack outrunning the raging water in a pickup truck with Dodd, another fireman and a dead guy in the bed.
- Armageddon – While Helios caused major destruction in Kansas City, it is only a minor inconvenience compared to what Eros is planning on doing. Eros has the potential to be an extinction level event, and while most people were fine with losing Kansas City, the whole human race is a bit too much. The powers that be decide that the experimental ABL is the solution. You might know ABL as airborne laser or more colloquially jet planes with frickin’ laser beams attached to their front. The lasers are meant to take out missiles, not giant asteroids but when the other option is death, the military is ready to give it a go. Did I mention that one of the jets is set to take off in south Florida where Hurricane Gloria is wreaking havoc? Humanity, can’t catch a break. The laser works… sort of. Now instead of one giant asteroid, Helios has been broken into 1000 pieces! Most will be burn up in the atmosphere, but many are heading straight towards Dallas. Did I mention that Dr. McKee’s son and father are currently in Dallas? The fragments rock Dallas, with another perfect aiming meteorite smashing Reunion Tower. If you like watching a city getting leveled, including cars flipping, streets buckling, buildings collapsing and an all-around conflagration excitation, you will love Asteroid.
- Judgment Day – The last third of Asteroid turns into a rescue mission to save the survivors of Dallas. This means Jack is getting things done, Dr. McKee searching for her family, and for some reason members of the KC Fire Department stopping a fire in the Dallas oil fields (the reason is because we have already become invested in Ben Dodd and his family.) While the rescue scenes are pretty harrowing, and involves a creepy man scaring the dickens out of Dr. McKee’s son, I find the rescue action pieces inferior to the carnage brought on by the asteroids. I would feel terrible if I spoiled a TV movie that is over twenty years old, but I will let you know that it is a TV movie that is over 20 years old. If you don’t think it is going to have a happy ending with all the major characters we have grown to care about over the last two hours having their stories wrapped up with a bow you would be mistaken. Also, there is nothing like a little threat of extinction to bring about a romantic relationship between the two movie leads.
Asteroid is a fun and surprising well-made television movie with impressive for the time effects. If you are really into accuracy when it comes to asteroids and meteorites you might want to turn off that part of your brain when you watch. Asteroid is meant to be a suspense filled disaster movie and in that regards it delivers. The action is buoyed by a stellar cast that make you believe and care in their journey. You don’t have to take my word about the cast, but you can’t deny the Bonus Bullet Points.
- Familiar Face – Dr. McKee’s father is played by Anthony Zerbe whose character is named Dr. Charles Napier. Somebody missed an excellent casting opportunity.
- Familiar Face – One of the FEMA officials was played by Frank McRae, who worked with Anthony Zerbe in Licence to Kill.
- Familiar Face – One of the local doctors in Dallas is Dr. Matthew Rogers, and besides playing the stereotypical screw up at the beginning who proves his worth by the end of the movie, is played by a young Michael Weatherly, probably most famous for NCIS.
- Familiar Face – Dr. Rogers is hot and heavy with fellow doctor Valerie Brennan played by Jensen Daggett, who I will always remember from her first role in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.
- Familiar Face – The President of the United States was played by Denis Arndt who has been in plenty of action films, but I will always remember him from Dolphin Tale 2.
- Familiar Face – Speaking of Dolphin Tale 2, Denis Arndt’s co-start Carlos Gomez plays Jack’s right hand man at FEMA and provider of much of the emotional consternation in Asteroid.
- Familiar Face – Firefighter Ben Dodd was played by Don Franklin, whom you might know by his other name, the poor man’s Blair Underwood. Blair Underwood was of course in the 1998 Asteroid copycat disaster film Deep Impact. Poor man’s Don Franklin?
