

ARMAGEDDON

Release Date: July 1, 1998
Starring: Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, Will
Patton, Peter Stormare, Keith
David, Steve Buscemi, William Fichtner
Directed by: Michael Bay
Distributed by: Buena Vista Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (sci-fi disaster action, sensuality, brief language) 
URL: http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio/reviews/1998/armageddon.htm

This year's second asteroid-threatens-earth movie turned out about how
last year's second volcano-threatens-city movie did. Similar to VOLCANO,
which was more action-oriented, more intense, and generally more on the
mark than the earlier-in-the-year DANTE'S PEAK, ARMAGEDDON takes a
decidedly different course of action than DEEP IMPACT. Produced by Jerry
Bruckheimer and directed by Michael Bay, two of the most noted action
movie crew heads, this one's got a better focus on the same material. In
short, there's more to like about ARMAGEDDON. 

There's quite a bit of star power involved in this one, and they're
mostly A-listers or competent supports, whereas DEEP IMPACT's cast was a
lot of unknowns. Although the movie begins with its biggest star - the
asteroid - we're soon introduced to our heroes. Dan Truman (Billy Bob
Thornton) gathers his team at NASA after a meteor shower destroys the
Space Shuttle Atlantis and a few choice spots of the Big Apple
(including the Chrysler Building). They realize there's a bigger chunk
of rock out there, and its imminent impact with the Blue Planet will
result in the death of every last organism - even bacteria. They can't
hit the thing from the outside; that'd just blow dust off the surface.
So they need to find the world's best deep-core driller, Harry Stamper
(Bruce Willis), and send him and his team up to the asteroid. Once
there, they need to drill down to 800 feet, plant a bomb, and get the
heck off before the explosion splits the Texas-sized thing in half. 

The picture is largely formula, but Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay
have been working at the action movie business long enough to know
exactly what formula works. Also, they're working in a genre where
formula is almost accepted in a good picture, and by this advice they
create their characters to be a cast of the usual suspects. There are no
truly two-dimensional characters, and it's unfortunate that Jonathan
Hensleigh and J.J. Abrams, who wrote the script, chose to write most of
the players in as jerks. Harry Stamper, A.J. Frost (Stamper's soon-to-be
son-in-law, played by Ben Affleck), Colonel Sharp (commander of the
mission to save the Earth, played by William Fichtner) and Rockhound (a
sex-obsessed crazy played by Steve Buscemi) are all testosterone-loaded
for one reason or another; Grace Stamper (Liv Tyler), Harry's daughter,
comes of as one who likes to play the victim; in fact, only "Chick"
Chapple (Will Patton), Harry's second-in-command, is likeable for his
character. 

The movie's last half-hour is worth as much as the rest of the movie,
and Bay and Bruckheimer seem to have lost some of the excellent pacing
they displayed in THE ROCK from two years ago. ARMAGEDDON runs 144
minutes in length but only gets really exciting near the end; everything
leading up to that is character development, Stamper and his crew
getting trained to be astronauts, or "teaser" footage of the asteroid
nearing Earth. Although it never pretends to be anything but, the movie
is a summer movie, which means it's terribly shallow in all respects and
over-saturated with special effects. There's nothing wrong with this
once you're in the mood, because ARMAGEDDON is a fun movie to watch.
Certainly one of the better summer flicks.

FINAL AWARD FOR "ARMAGEDDON": 3.0 stars - a good movie.

-- 
Craig Roush
[email-masked]
--
Kinnopio's Movie Reviews
http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio