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Meteor

4.8

1,186

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Original title

Meteor

Year

1979

Running time

103 min.

Country

United States

Director

Ronald Neame

Screenwriter

Stanley Mann, Edmund H. North

Cast

Music

Laurence Rosenthal

Cinematography

Paul Lohmann

Producer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Genre

Drama. Action. Sci-Fi | Disaster Film

Synopsis

Sean Connery leads a team of asteroid-battling astronomers in Meteor, one of the last and most unusual examples of the disaster movie craze of the 1970s. In this one, a killer asteroid named Orpheus threatens to collide with the Earth, and Connery must come up with a plan to stop it. Cold war politics date the picture a bit, but they also add some weight to the impending doom facing humanity. Like any good disaster flick, it's populated by an all-star cast, including Karl Malden, Martin Landau, Natalie Wood, Richard Dysart, Henry Fonda, and Trevor Howard. Brian Keith plays Connery's opposite number in the U.S.S.R. While the pacing and special effects are weak compared to similar celestial menaces depicted in Armageddon and Deep Impact, Meteor displays all the benefits of its more powerful cast… not to mention Hank Fonda as President.

Awards: 1979: Nominated for Oscar: Best Sound

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Critics' reviews

"Director Ronald Neame brings his impersonal British craftsmanship to this 1979 feature, so it isn't a complete bust, but it's a long way from the apocalyptic satisfactions of his Poseidon Adventure."

Dave Kehr: Chicago Tribune
"The suspense is sludgy and the character development nil; even the inadvertent comedy is spotty."

Janet Maslin: The New York Times
"Meteor really combines several disasters in one continuous cinematic bummer."

Variety Staff: Variety
"Let's face it, the bottom line on a disaster film is how special are its special effects. With Meteor, the answer is not very."

Gene Siskel: Chicago Tribune
"Director Ronald Neame, who once made good movies, has instructed his actors to shout as much as possible. The rest is special effects -- and not very special ones at that."

David Ansen: Newsweek
"An $18 million, star-studded disaster film, which in itself is a major disaster."

TV Guide
"Shoddy, unspeakably inept sci-fi disaster movie, with America and Russia combining forces when a meteor on collision course threatens to destroy the earth."

Time Out

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User history

Meteor

1979

Ronald Neame

4.8

(1,186)