Meteor
Released: October 19, 1979
Budget: $16 million
US Box Office: $8 million
Global Box Office: NA
Director: Ronald Neame
Cast: Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Martin
Landau, Henry Fonda
Synopsis: Americans and Soviets must work together to stop a 5-
Best Quote: “If you think you can prevent it by burying your heads under a blanket of shit, fine. If you ever reach your decision I’ll be in the bar across the street.”
Review:
While Meteor is ambitious and has its fair share of charm, it winds up being a quite forgettable disaster flick.
Definitely the best thing this movie has going for it is Sean Connery. Shot during the peak of his awkward fight with father time before he embraced the white hair, Connery plays a genius scientist who swears like a sailor and always has time to take a break from saving the world to complement a pretty lady. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast (and most of their dialogue) is pretty terrible and so Mr. Bond is forced to try and carry too much of this one on his own. On a brighter note, the movie gives us a tsunami, an avalanche, and a huge meteorite crash. The effects aren’t terrible and you have to applaud the ambition. I’ve decided that more movies should throw in a random avalanche seen for good measure…they’re fun.
While the movie itself is far from a classic, as a period piece it is pretty interesting. Blowing the coming meteor out of the sky isn’t really the challenge like it is in other movies with similar (read: the same) plots like Deep Impact and Armageddon. The major hurdle for the U.S. in this one is limiting tension with the Soviets and not getting caught up in its own hypocrisy. It’s interesting, but successfully getting through some bureaucracy doesn’t feel too heroic and isn’t all that satisfying.
