Subject: Review: Armageddon (1998)

From: "David Wilcock" <[email-masked]>
Date: 24 Aug 1998 18:38:54 GMT

ARMAGEDDON
A review by David Wilcock (C)1998

(TOUCHSTONE PICTURES)
RUNNING TIME: 2 HOURS 24 MINUTES.
STARRING BRUCE WILLIS, BILLY BOB THORNTON, LIV TYLER AND BEN AFFLECK.
DIRECTED BY MICHAEL BAY.

The second meteorite movie after the dire Deep Impact (1998) is brought by
the team who produced the dire action movie The Rock (1996). Luckily,
however, Armageddon is better than both of these films, and provides
entertaining summer fare. The 'plot' is that an asteroid is about to hit
Earth, and a group of normal people (Bruce Willis being the ringleader) are
sent into space to nuke the asteroid from the inside, bouncing it off
course. Naturally, there's lot of death, destruction, and impressive special
effects along the way.
Jerry Bruckheimer has produced another big action movie, but this one tries
to be a little different by trying to develop the characters a bit more.
Unfortunately, it spends too long trying to develop decidedly dull
characters, and the audience starts to long for the action sequences.
Amongst the characters, NASA guy Dan Truman (Thornton) Bruce Willis, and a
whacked out Steve Buscemi provide any interest,  while the rest of the
characters are boring, 2-D stereotypes, the kind of characters Bruckheimers
films specialize in. The script dosen't fare much better, with the usual
boring statements, although Buscemi does deliver the odd funny line. Liv
Tylers and Ben Afflecks love scenes, however, are so terribly messed up they
shouldn't have been included at all. The lines they say are banal, and out
of place in this movie.

When the film does finally gets to business with the action, it's directed
well, with some tense sequences and some great action. The destruction on
Earth looks much better than Deep Impact's, and the outer space sequences
are great also. All of this will be lost on home video, of course, so try to
see this film in the movie theatre. The special effects are truly special,
and none of it looks too cheesy (like parts of Godzilla)

Armageddon, although suffering from a few flaws, is entertaining, and most
of the time has the right balance of drama, action and comedy. Although the
movie could be a bit shorter, and perhaps a bit more effort (rather than
time) spent on developing the characters, this could of been a better movie.
Generally, however, Armageddon is good summer entertainment, and certainly
worth seeing.

OVERALL RATING=*** OUT OF *****

REVIEW BY DAVID WILCOCK ©1998

DAVID WILCOCK
[email-masked]
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