

ARMAGEDDON
A film by Michael Bay
Starring Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Steve Buscemi, Liv Tyler, and Billy 
Bob Thornton

    WHEW!  Summer blockbusters don't get much bigger than ARMAGEDDON, a 
2 hour 30 minute ride through outer space.  You think Godzilla was big?  
Or Deep Impact?  Forget a creature as big as the Empire State Building, 
forget a comet the size of NYC, ARMAGEDDON's got a big asteroid the size 
of Texas hurtling its way here within two weeks.  In that time, the US 
government recruits, trains, and launches the world's best oil-rig 
drillers to save the planet?
    Farfetched?  ARMAGEDDON makes the THE X-FILES seem like a docudrama. 
 But that's not the point.  Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer are in the 
business of making classic popcorn movies, movies that are completely 
enjoyable and forgettable.  In that sense, they succeed.  There isn't 
much of a plot, simply because Tyler and Affleck don't carry the same 
kind of chemistry needed to produce a decent subplot.  Willis is as 
macho as ever as Harry Stamper, the leader of this rag-tag crew that's 
going to save the planet.  The movie flows with testosterone, and is 
filled with macho, big-bang explosions and meteors clobbering the earth. 

    While it's fun, and while the movie is rapid, there's one huge 
problem: overkill.  Bay and Bruckheimer want to top everything.  
Literally.  So they constructed a movie almost 3 hours long filled with 
explosions.  The one problem is overkill.  Bay and Bruckheimer fail to 
stop: they just keep on going, making the film one endless explosion 
after another.  The plot's predictable, and the movie starts to lose 
steam in the middle.  During the space sequences, bad lighting mixed 
with Bay's frenetic editing makes about a good 30 minutes of the movie 
almost incoherent, with running cameras on blurred images.  Explosion 
after explosion rock the movie, as nothing goes right for our fearless 
warriors.  Bay and Bruckheimer failed to ease up on the craziness, 
expecting the audience to get emotionally attached, so that they would 
feel the highs and lows. 
    That's not easy to do with the poor characterization.  The only fun 
from this crew comes from Affleck and Buscemi, who have the best lines 
in the movie.  Still, there's no denying ARMAGEDDON isn't fun.  It has 
its moments, and there's a lot to like in this film.  It's not smart 
entertainment, it relies on sheer overpowering to carry its viewers, and 
there are a lot of really neat sequences.  You just leave with a feeling 
of disappointment, because there's TOO much to like.  The action is 
brain-numbing, so that the last hour goes by in a blur.  It's an 
enjoyable ride, but Bay, who tames his frenetic touch in the beginning, 
restarts it again at the end, causing the film to be a big collage of 
fast-paced images.  The film is just too long, and too big for its own 
good.  It's a fun ride, but in the end, it's just too big.  There's too 
much in this film to be truly effective.  If about a half-hour was cut 
from this film, it would be a lot easier to take.
    Overall, although an enjoyable blockbuster that's ten times better 
than Godzilla, ARMAGEDDON just isn't good enough.  THE X-FILES and THE 
TRUMAN SHOW were better films, and more enjoyable.  Maybe it's because 
they were shorter?

OVERALL: ** 1/2 out of ****
Good in stretches, but way too much.