The disaster genre was
fading by the time this star-studded flick arrived in late 1979, but it’s not
as if Meteor ever stood a chance of
success. Possibly the lowest-energy disaster movie ever made, this silly picture
comprises bored-looking actors lounging around a high-tech command center while
they wait for something bad to happen. Considering that the storyline envisions
a giant asteroid thundering toward Earth, it’s amazing how casual everyone
behaves. Even during the second half of the movie, after thousands of people
have died, characters idly pass their time by chatting over chess games
and flirting over salads.
Sean Connery stars as Paul Bradley, a protagonist pulled straight off the disaster-movie assembly line: He’s a reluctant savior
whose expertise concerns an outer-space missile installation the U.S.
government hopes to use against the approaching meteor. Paul is assumed into
service by government official Harry Sherwood (Karl Malden), and they quarrel
about strategy with the inevitable hard-ass military
man, General Adlon (Martin Landau). Adlon is among the most idiotic characters
in the history of the disaster genre, because he spends most of the movie bitching about
the danger of leaving America undefended even though the alternative is
planetary obliteration.
The story also features Cold War-era hogwash about
persuading the Russian government to use the missiles on their outer-space installation, so Bradley’s Soviet counterpart,
Dr. Dubov (Brian Keith), travels to the U.S. with his assistant/translator,
Tatiana (Natalie Wood). Keith’s gruff vibe enlivens the movie, but Meteor is so drab the filmmakers forget to advance the predictable Connery-Wood romance beyond a few friendly
conversations.
Even with Poseidon
Adventure director Ronald Neame helming, Meteor drags along through one uneventful scene after another
before the corpse-strewn climax, in which a small meteor hits the command
center, forcing the heroes to make a daring escape attempt through an
underwater subway tunnel. Enervated in the extreme, Meteor wastes a great cast (which also includes Richard Dysart,
Henry Fonda, and Trevor Howard), and since the movie came out two years after Star Wars, its inert special effects
feel positively archaic.
Meteor:
LAME
4 comments:
I saw meteor when it first came in 1979 & even at 12 years old i found this movie to be boring. Now i can enjoy it the wood the actors are either gnawing on or the look on their faces.
The scenes in the Alps use footage from Avalanche (1978).
I read somewhere that Keith's and Wood's Russian proficiency came from being Russian immigrants as children, thus their knowledge of the language.
There's some question about Keith - one source claims he learned Russian during his military service, a few others say he didn't really know the language at all but picked up a working amount over the years from different teachers while preparing for films like The Russians Are Coming. Keith was not an immigrant and his family so far as I can tell were not Russian. Natalie Wood gave an interview around the time Meteor came out where she said that Keith was obviously not a native Russian speaker, as his American accent was very noticeable, but otherwise was pleasantly surprised at how strong his command of the language was.
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