A high school Astronomy club discovers a celestial anomaly, their advisor checks it, becomes alarmed at what he finds, and things shift gears. Not bad for a movie that made "E.L.E/Extinction Level Event" a popular phrase and made the naive public aware of The Danger From Space.
From there, seemingly unrelated events come to the attention of a novice TV reporter, culminating in an Apollo-Soyuz level cooperative near space mission. The star-studded crew isn't worked very hard, even as the people are divided into two groups by lottery.
Nevertheless, Family is front and center, in many forms, from divided to nuclear to "baby makes three." At least the audience wasn't subjected to a barrage of macho chatter that characterized "Armageddon," but a out-of-this-world reading of "Moby Dick."
Morgan Freeman's "President Tom Beck" does his best "Abraham Lincoln" in this film, which is one reason I watch this film when it is broadcast, even though I have the DVD. 8/10;)