Subject: Review: Armageddon (1998)

From: [email-masked] (Brian Takeshita)
Date: 20 Jul 1998 04:59:21 GMT

ARMAGEDDON

A Film Review by Brian Takeshita

Rating:  ** out of ****

Naturally, there are a lot of expectations surrounding a film starring
Bruce Willis, directed by Michael Bay, and produced by Gale Anne Hurd
and Jerry Bruckheimer, because it has "summer action blockbuster"
written all over it.  ARMAGEDDON is the second movie this year to
feature a plot involving a big rock hurtling through space to destroy
the earth, and a plan to land on the rock, drill into it, and blow it
up with nuclear weapons before it hits.  The first film, DEEP IMPACT,
was disappointing enough that expectations for ARMAGEDDON have run
even higher.

We start out when NASA, under the direction of Dan Truman (Billy Bob
Thornton), discovers an asteroid the size of Texas which will impact
the earth in only 16 days.  Briefing the president, Truman explains
that the asteroid is what they call a "planet killer" which would
destroy all life; not even bacteria would survive.  To divert the
oncoming menace, NASA decides to send a bunch of oil drillers, led by
Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis), into space to blow the asteroid into two
pieces.  Scientists calculate the pieces would miss the planet, and
life could continue.

Stamper's oil drillers are not your average astronaut material, since
they are your average movie stereotype roughnecks.  Not much
discipline, trouble with the law, that sort of thing, and ARMAGEDDON
plays the "fish out of water" angle like you would expect.  There are
the scenes where they go through testing, training, and meet the
"real" astronauts.  It's all pretty amusing, especially a sequence
showing how each of them react to one of those Rorschach ink blot
tests.  They don't disappoint in delivery of humorous quips, either.
When they finally blast off, one of them says how incredible it is,
and another replies, "And this is only the beginning of space.  We
haven't even gotten into OUTER space yet!"  The problem is, it's not
very original.  The group reminded me somewhat of the band of veterans
Gene Hackman assembles in UNCOMMON VALOR.  A few of the cast members
even look like them.

Willis has played the tough guy for a long time now, so this role
isn't too much of a stretch for him.  The hardest part in playing
Stamper is trying to keep a Texas accent, which seems to move in and
out of Willis's vocal range.  A little different, though, is that
Stamper is the father of a full grown daughter, Grace (Liv Tyler), who
is love with A.J. Frost (Ben Affleck), one of the best drillers on the
team.  This gives Willis a lot of "I'm your father"-type lines, in
addition to the "I'm out here to save the world" lines.

I'm sure the scenes Affleck shares with Tyler will be appealing to
most women.  He's a handsome guy, and the movie does a lot to show him
doing those romantic things women love, like taking Grace on a picnic
in the middle of nowhere, and singing to her in front of a volume of
people.  Guys will probably think he's a schmuck.  Combined with his
action sequences, Affleck proves himself a versatile actor, but there
just isn't enough to his character to make him really likable.  If he
were to disappear three-quarters of the way through the movie, he
probably wouldn't be missed.

Whereas Affleck may be versatile, Liv Tyler has only two faces:  Pouty
and pensive.  She's nice on the eyes, but her acting is relatively
flat, and that look like she's going to bite her lip anytime now gets
old real fast.  There's also a couple of scenes where she just wigs
out, and I can't characterize them as anything less than annoying.

Perhaps the best performance is given by Billy Bob Thornton, whose
acting is solid.  The scriptwriters also deserve credit for making
Truman a character with depth, considering it could have easily been a
very thankless role.

The special effects work about half the time.  When the drilling crew
takes off in two newly designed space shuttles, the launch sequence is
very gripping.  Just getting it to look like there is a second
launchpad at Kennedy Space Center was good enough for me, but the
power and dazzle of the boosters igniting has to be seen.  Scenes
where much smaller asteroid fragments strike the earth also look
extremely realistic.  Anything involving the asteroid, however, is
throwaway.  It's too dark, vague, cluttered, and amorphous, and since
we don't have any concept of scale, it ends up being relatively
unimpressive.  When the biggest menace in your summer action
blockbuster looks like something the cat coughed up, that's bad.

While I wouldn't say the action is non-stop, Bay keeps the movie going
at a good pace and continuously gives us something to look at, be it
the asteroid, the space shuttles, or Liv Tyler.  Unfortunately, the
action itself is often undermined by not being able to fully see
what's going on in a shot (most of the scenes on the asteroid are in
darkness), or by the ambiguity of why something is supposed to be
dangerous.  "Drilling is an art form," a character says.  Apparently,
like art, it is not easily explained.  Half the time I didn't know
what was going on, and therefore didn't know why the drill started
shaking, and therefore didn't know why everyone was getting so
excited.  When the action in you summer action blockbuster is too
confusing, that's bad.

Many parts of ARMAGEDDON were apparently photographed to produce what
I call "The Bruckheimer Look".  Graduated filters are used to make the
skies more blue, or bluish-purple, while everything under it is shaded
with similar enhancing colors.  You see it in just about all the
Bruckheimer-produced films, like TOP GUN and THE ROCK.  There are also
a lot of scenes meant to show the beauty and variations of humanity:
Kids running, old men looking out of windows, Hindu masses bowing in
the courtyard of a temple - all in slow motion.  It looks a lot like a
credit card or soft drink commercial, or perhaps a music video.  Not
surprisingly, Michael Bay directed a lot of both of those before
coming to film.  My suggestion:  Learn new techniques.  When your
summer action blockbuster looks like a commercial, that's bad.

Action movies are usually notorious for their lack of logic, and this
film is no exception.  Our heroes have to drill only 800 feet so a
nuclear warhead can split the Texas-sized asteroid in two?  I don't
think the physics work out.  How convenient is it, that NASA just
happens to have two (not one, but two) secret prototype space shuttles
ready just in time?  Why were they secret, anyway?  When the main
characters go into space, they take large auto-cannons with them.
Just whom, may I ask, are they expecting to use them on?

Okay, the 16 days to impact thing?  I have to give them credit for
this one.  When asked why they didn't detect the asteroid sooner,
NASA's response is that the pathetic funding for astromonitoring is
only enough to cover about three percent of space.  Take that,
balanced budget.

Although the film isn't as engaging as expected, we are thrown a
couple of treats.  One of the mission control technicians Truman
depends upon to make a key transmission is named Vossler.  The radio
technician aboard the USS Alabama in CRIMSON TIDE, another movie
produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, was also named Vossler.  One of the
astronauts on Stamper's shuttle is named Gruber.  The villains in two
of the DIE HARD movies, starring Bruce Willis, were also named Gruber.
You've got to watch for these things, folks.  They happen a lot more
often than you think.

Oh, one more:  The two main characters are named Harry S. Stamper, and
Dan Truman.  Harry S. and Truman.  Neat, huh?

Review posted July 10, 1998