Meteor (1979)

Continuing my plan to watch every Sean Connery movie in order, I come to his second movie of 1979 Meteor.Plot In A Paragraph: The USA must join forces with the USSR in order to destroy a gigantic asteroid heading straight for Earth.Meteor isn't so much a disaster movie as it is a disaster. Almost every role is miscast, they are given ridiculous dialogue, the special effects are ropey at best and considering what is at stake, there is a lack of tension. I'm actually bored writing this review.Meteor didn't make a dent at the domestic box office, failing to recoup its $22 million budget.

One of the last of the disaster films which the 1970s doled out with great regularity, this is trashy sci-fi fun. The script by Stanley Mann and Edmund H. North is not exactly free of cliché but it is largely free of scientific accuracy. There are a few nice lines here and there though. The film's director Ronald Neame lived to be 99. While he may have been blessed with great longevity, he was not blessed with great talent as his direction is pretty mediocre. It's competent but nothing to get excited about. The visual effects are generally speaking not very good by 1979 standards but the devastation of New York City is effectively portrayed. Considering that it begins with the destruction of the World Trade Center, I found it more emotionally affecting than it was ever intended to be, unfortunately. I freely admit that the film is not very good but it appeals to the part of me that enjoys schlocky hokum and, on that level, I quite liked it. I dislike the term "guilty pleasure" but, if I were forced into a corner, I would describe it as one.The film stars Sean Connery in a great performance as the former NASA scientist Dr. Paul Bradley. He is contacted by his erstwhile employers, who inform him that the asteroid Orpheus was struck by a newly discovered comet several days earlier and a five mile fragment of said asteroid is hurtling towards a particular planet in the Solar System. It just so happens to be Earth, worst luck. Bradley left NASA because he objected to the fact that his orbital defence system Project Hercules, which he designed for just such an eventuality, was hijacked by the US military industrial complex and turned into a nuclear weapons platform to be used against the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China if necessary. In this respect, the plot foreshadows the proposed Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) - otherwise known as "Star Wars" - announced by Ronald Reagan in 1983. As it turns out, Hercules' fourteen nuclear missiles are not enough to destroy the meteor and, after some Cold War posturing, the USSR agrees to place their equivalent satellite Peter the Great at the disposal of Bradley and his fellow scientists.In one of her final film appearances before her tragic death in 1981, Natalie Wood, one of my favourite actresses of her generation, is very good as the Russian astrophysicist Dr. Tatiana Donskaya. Considering that Wood had been virtually absent from the silver screen since "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" a decade earlier, it is a pretty safe bet that she was cast more for her ability to speak fluent Russian than for her great skill as an actress. While she does not have as much opportunity to display it on this occasion as I would have liked, she does the best that she can with the material. I liked the nice understated romance between Bradley and Tatiana, though it is very underdeveloped even by the standards of understated romances! It's a shame that this was her only film with Connery as they had good chemistry. It would have been nice to see them in a better film together but, alas, it was not to be. Brian Keith gives the best performance in the film, stealing the show as the incredibly likable Soviet scientist Dr. Dubov. He has the lion's share of the best lines in the film, almost all of which are delivered in Russian. Keith was a very good actor but he was likewise cast because of his fluency in the language. In spite of a dodgy start, Karl Malden is good as Bradley's old friend Harry Sherwood. Martin Landau's performance as the film's not terribly bright or perceptive antagonist General Adlon is not one of his best but he does much better in the scenes in which he is calmer than in the ones in which he has to shout. Henry Fonda, also making one of his final film appearances, is very atypically bad in his cameo role as the President. Conversely, Trevor Howard makes the most of his limited screen time as the prominent British astronomer Sir Michael Hughes, even though he only ever appears on a TV screen. It also features nice small appearances from Joseph Campanella, Richard Dysart and Bibi Besch.Overall, I rather enjoyed this film because I turned my brain off and took very little of it seriously. I'd take it over "Armageddon" any day of the week.

A giant meteor races through space on a collision course with Earth. It's up to a team of scientists led by the crabby Dr. Paul Bradley (Sean Connery at his most gruff and cranky) to figure out a way to stop it before it's too late.Director Ronald Neame treats the pretty silly premise with utmost seriousness and relates the engrossing story at a brisk pace. The compact script by Stanley Mann and Edmund H. North keeps the soapy subplots to a refreshing bare minimum. The big name cast adds immensely to this film's overall entertainment value: Karl Malden does well as no-nonsense project leader Howard Sherwood, Natalie Wood looks positively ravishing as fetching Russian interpreter Tatiana, Brian Keith contributes an engaging performance as the amiable Dr. Dubov, and Martin Landau provides gut-busting unintentional comic relief by screaming almost all of his lines as the irate General Adlon, plus there's sturdy work from Trevor Howard as British boffin Sir Michael Hughes, Henry Fonda as an aged president, Richard Dysart as the Secretary of Defense, Joseph Campenella as the stalwart General Easton, and Bo Brundin as hearty chief technician Rolf Manheim. Sybil Danning pops up in a small role as an ill-fated Swiss skier. The shoddy (not so) special effects possess a certain endearingly tacky charm, with a set piece involving a bunch of folks getting soaked with what appears to be chocolate milk rating as an absolute sidesplitting hoot. Paul Lohmann's crisp cinematography makes neat use of the widescreen format. Laurence Rosenthal's robust bombastic score hits the rousing spot. A fun flick.

All star science fiction movie made by American International Pictures that's in the vein of disaster movies of the '70s.A comet strikes an asteroid belt, and flings a fragment 5 miles long into collision course with earth. Americans have put in orbit satellite carrying 14 rockets each with 100 megaton warhead called "Hercules". They are to use it to shoot the in coming meteor , but it won't be enough to stop it. They must work with the Russians who has similar weapon called "Peter the Great" in orbit and combine their forces to stop the meteor.This movie was made before Walter Alvarez's meteor extinction theory of the dinosaurs. It's foresighted for its time in this respect. The movie has satirical scenes of powers not agreeing to cooperate despite the immanent danger, but it's done deliciously, and fun to watch.The movie has qualities of the low budget science fiction movies of the '50s. But it's done in much grander scale. Good movie that captures the atmosphere of the '70s well.