A comet the size of Texas is headed for Earth. In one of the film's few good lines, its discoverer says: 'I want to name it after my wife. It's a vicious, life-sucking bitch from which there's no escape.'

There's only one chance. Send for wildcatter Bruce Willis and his dirty dozen drillers (including Ben Affleck), put them up in space and let them sink a nuclear weapon into the comet.

'Talk about the wrong stuff,' gasps a NASA official as the unlikely saviours arrive. He's the wrong 'un, of course, but it's over two hours before that's proven and Willis's men can go home.

Trivia: The narrator's voice is that of Charlton Heston.