This came out around the same time as Armageddon, with a similar theme. Yet, somehow was like the forgotten little brother to that other horrid disaster. This was much better than Armageddon, but it wasn’t “great”.  The characters in this movie were a lot more real – they actually took the time to develop some of the characters.  The story was a little more believable (although it wasn’t much more “real”, they did a better job of selling it.)  Plus, this movie tried to tackle the huge human questions that would be posed by such a disaster: how would people react? what would the government do?, etc.  I actually liked the special effects of this movie better than those of Armageddon, but they were “lower budget” (I’d rather see New York get smothered by a tidal wave than smashed by a bunch of asteroids) Plus, the end of this movie was somewhat sad, but then again reassuring – even when confronted with disaster, life goes on and people rebuild.  (It’s so rare for major hollywood movies to kill off their main characters unless they come back to life as angels or some crap – this movie actually killed them).  So, if you must see one of last year’s  “outer space object heading for earth” movies, see Deep Impact.