IMDb metadata: 1 hour and 46 minutes rated 4.9/10 from 5730 raters.
A big budget disaster movie from the era of big budget disaster movies. The clichés are all there: the solitary Chicken Little, the fetching femme, the stalwart buddy, the doubting Thomases, the extras to become victims, the special effects of falling bricks and rising waters. But it does have some twists that set it slightly apart.
The set up is this: A large object is on a collision course with Earth! Only James Bond, once again, can save the world. With half-hearted grousing he is summoned for reasons that never become clear since he does nothing thereafter but snipe at others. President Henry Fonda mouths lines. Trevor Howard has a few moments to impart some purpose.
The twist is that to destroy the Really Big Space Rock will take the combined effort of the USA and the USSR. Much mutual suspicion is exercised, but in the end the Soviets agree and trust the mission, controlling fourteen USSR nuclear warheads to one scientist and a translator, whom they send to New York City. Sure. That is the way the Kremlin worked in 1979. The Russians are coming.
The scientist is the redoubtable Brian Keith who does it well, and his translator is a very drawn Natalie Wood, who adds grace to anything.
The USAF in the person of Martin Landau opposes everything with childish temper tantrums. Salute that! Don’t blame Marty because he is written that way.
Together the Russkies and the Yankees blast the rock but shards still strike Earth giving us some nice disaster scenes. Yuk. Bond saves everyone.
By the time this one was made the disaster tire had no tread left on it. All the tropes are there but everyone from the scriptwriter to the extras seems bored by it. Karl Malden puts the most into his part, and Keith seems to enjoy the language barrier, but Bond and the ethereal Wood seem to be waiting for it to end. So did I.
Richard Crenna in ‘A Fire in the Sky’ (1978), reviewed elsewhere on this blog, did the same part as Sean Connery in this film, and Crenna did it better – more energy, more intelligence, more conviction, and he had material that had some science and some compassion in it. This film seems to rest entirely on the big names in the cast, and they in turn go through the motions as quickly as possible.
The rockets in space was a neat idea and well presented for the toy model special effects used.
This block buster was delayed in production in the effort to improve it. Failed. The ‘New York Times’ reviewer, Jane Maslin, nailed it: slow, sludge, half-baked, boring. Those were her kindest remarks.
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