's out of 5)Ronald Neame
Cast
Sean Connery - Dr. Paul Bradley
Natalie Wood - Tatiana Donskaya
Karl Malden - Harry Sherwood
Brian Keith - Dr. Alexei Dubov
Martin Landau - Gen. Adlon
Henry Fonda - The President
Trevor Howard - Sir Michael Hughes
Richard Dysart - Secretary of Defense
I've been busy most of April and some of May with moving from one state to another. And now that I'm in a new state, I'm busy establishing a new life and adjusting to a new job. To make a boring personal story shorter but still just as boring, my sci-fi DVDs along with, well, all the rest of my DVDs are all packed in storage. So, I'm veering off my lineup of movies for this blog and my horror blog, 1000daysofhorror.blogspot.com. 
Fragments hit the World Trade Center, destroying it and a lot of New York City in general. When the fragments destroy the NASA facility everyone is working in to monitor the meteor, which forces survivors into the New York City subway just as the East River begins flooding it, the impact of the meteor is still 15 minutes away. The Russian and U.S. missiles are slowly making their way towards the meteor, taking their sweet time as though they're taking inspiration from Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey."
Trevor Howard - Sir Michael Hughes
Richard Dysart - Secretary of Defense
In the meantime, I have to take potluck...cinematically speaking.
Case and point - "Meteor."
This 1979 star studded sci-fi flick isn't much reminisced about in the sci-fi flick world.
Clearly attempting to piggyback off the impressive visual effects of "Star Wars" released two years early, that's where "Meteor" strives to make a big impact of its own (no pun intended).
And when I say star-studded (again, no pun... nevermind) I mean it. Sean Connery takes the lead role as Dr. Paul Bradley. He shares the screen with Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Martin Landau, Henry Fonda, and Trevor Howard.
"Meteor" is the "Airport" of science fiction disaster movies.
A meteor measuring five miles long is hurdling towards Earth.
The huge meteor is a splinter created when the asteroid Orpheus is struck by a comet. Smaller fragments are also heading to Earth and are expected to cause some devastation in certain parts of the globe. But the meteor is going to make impact in just a few days. It's expected to bring about mass extinction so someone on Earth better do something or...it's all over.
The United States does have a super-duper secret weapon - a satellite missile called "Hercules." It was created by Dr. Paul Bradley (Sean Connary) who designed it for such a global threat like a meteor. 
However, U.S. Armed Forces took over the Hercules and pointed it at the U.S.S.R. which really wasn't a smart move, all things considered.
Unfortunately, when the meteor is discovered, and scientists start working out the calculations and details, the missiles on the Hercules won't be enough to stop it.
The Soviet Union happens to have a weapons satellite called "Peter the Great" equipped with 16 nuclear warheads. And their satellite is pointing right at the U.S.
Turnabout is fair play!
So, the President (Henry Fonda) goes on television and tells the nation about Orpheus and Hercules, and asks the U.S.S.R. for a joint effort in destroying the meteor before it makes impact.
To make that happen, Dr. Bradley specifically requests Soviet scientist Dr. Alexei Dubov (Brian Keith) to head Russia's side of the effort.
Bradley and NASA worker Harry Sherwood (Karl Malden) lead the United States' side of the plan.
Dubov brings his interpreter, Tatiana Donskaya (Natalie Wood) to assist and create a bridge of trust among all involved. Of course, she also captures Bradley's attention.
Once the fragments start impacting the earth, time is of the essence to destroy the huge meteor. And all the world is praying that the planet's only way out of global extinction will work.
When it comes to disaster movies between the 1950s into the late 1970s, they normally don't involve a scenario that'll lead to global chaos and death.
Rather, they involve chaos on a smaller scale like a capsized cruise ship in "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972), or a massive fire in a high-rise office building like in "The Towering Inferno" (1974). In fact, it's worth mentioning that "Meteor" director Ronald Neame also directed the latter.
The 1973 movie "The Crazies" centers around a man-made virus that causes permanent insanity and ultimately death, but even that is only within the confines of a small Pennsylvania town.
Outside of Godzilla movies, and anything involving alien invasions, "Meteor" is the only movie I can think of between 1950 to 1980 where the entire earth is at risk thanks to a natural phenomenon.
"Meteor" manages to be entertaining to a point, but it's gruelingly slow and laughable at times when it clearly doesn't intend to be. The majority of the film is dialogue mixed with overly intense shots of the meteor slowly floating in space.
I'll get this remark out of the way. The effects are mostly laughable. There's no other way to put it without beating around the green screened bush. They're a mix of colored filters, stock footage (or what looks like stock footage), models, and on-set special effects.
"Meteor" is heavy in the scary apocalyptic dialogue against an imposing musical score. The audience is treated to a variety of different angles of the same meteor floating towards earth in order to really drive the point home to the audience that this is the meteor of all meteors.
The funniest parts, whether it's intended or not, occur each time Sean Connary swears. I mean it when I say Sean Connary's swearing is music to my ears. Normally, I don't care for excessive swearing for swearing's sake in movies. However, coming out of Connary's mouth makes me grin from ear to ear. In fact, I'm calling it. Connary's swearing is the best part of this movie!
"Why don't you stick a broom up my ass? I can sweep the carpet on the way out," he says in one scene.
"Why don't you stick a broom up my ass? I can sweep the carpet on the way out," he says in one scene.
The best swear scene occurs when Harry Sherwood briefs Bradley on the situation. Sherwood tells him, "That meteor is five miles wide, and it's definitely gonna hit us."
Bradley's reply is a swift and natural, "Shit!'
It is, without a doubt, the most perfect utterance on screen of that one word in the history of film profanity. The timing and promptness behind the way Connery says it is nothing but pure, Connary-an genius! Pardon me while I wipe a single tear from my eye.
Anyway, how about this exchange that occurs later in the film?
"I just wondered if you had taken time to eat," Tatiana asks Dr. Bradley.
"Yes, I had some coffee," he replies.
The dialogue is something you just have to hear for yourself.
The movie has a lot of buildup. That buildup is followed by more buildup, which is followed by even more buildup. All that buildup is so overly dramatic, it's almost entrancing.
 |
| Sean Connary and Karl Malden in "Meteor." |
There's one colossal scene, music and all, with characters glued to their monitors as the Russian and U.S. satellites turn towards the meteor. It's not only amazingly dramatic, it's impressively silly as well. I wish I had timed how long that particular scene is.
After what seemed like 10 to 15 minutes of the most epic satellite turning I've ever seen, it just ends. The story shifts (finally) to some destruction as a splinter meteor strikes the side of a mountain at some Swiss ski town which causes a massive avalanche.
The final destruction of the five-mile-long meteor has the longest explosion and close-up of an explosion I've ever seen. It's almost hilarious.
All the realism behind the completely out-of-touch airheaded government leadership is more real than the special effects. They bumble their way around the issue completely unable to cover their hypocrisy and everyone else but themselves recognize it, particularly the Russians.
"Meteor" is a mix of serious intensity, randomness, and very dramatic effects that I'm sure the producers must have been really proud of. It takes itself way too seriously.
It wants to be a dramatic sci-fi spectacle. Honestly, I can't tell if it actually accomplished being the huge spectacle it intended to be or not. I laughed at all the wrong parts. And several times I uttered, "what the hell am I watching?"
The movie does manage to entertain with all its seriousness and Connary swearing. It really tries to be a monumental sci-fi disaster movie. If it succeeds in the end, it definitely does so for completely different reasons than what the producers likely intended. Getting through it was one hell of a trip.
