Subject: Review: Armageddon (1998)

From: "Jason Wallis" <[email-masked]>
Date: 20 Jul 1998 05:27:32 GMT

Armageddon (1998) * * * (out of four)
Starring Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Will
Patton, Steve Buscemi, Michael Duncan and Keith David 
Directed by Michael Bay 
Rated PG-13 for planetary disaster, profanity and pillow talk 
Theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 
Released in 1998 
Running 150 minutes 

Armageddon, in itself, symbolizes everything that is wrong in modern
filmmaking. Stories have been replaced with special effects; character
development gets overshadowed by bad dialogue; plotting consists of a bunch
of shit getting blown up. Armageddon is as stupid, as loud and as shallow
as any movie you'll see come out this summer, or maybe even any other
summer. But I loved every freaking minute of it. 

Believe me, I'm just as shocked as you are. Hell, I don't even know why I
went to see it in the first place. The previews were so annoying that I
predicted this was going to be the worst film of the year, or at least in
the running. I'm sorry, but "Somebody dial 911!!!" isn't quite the tagging
that's going to sell a movie. It isn't too wise either to market the film
using the movie's stupidest lines ("Beam me up Scotty" - yeah, that sure is
great writing...). I mean, let's face it; Armageddon's previews rival The
Truman Show's as being some of the worst of the year. Neither of them even
come close to doing their respective films justice. 

Of course, you all know the story. When the Earth is threatened with total
annihilation via an asteroid the size of Texas, NASA calls in the US's top
oil drillers (!) to go into space (!) and implant a nuclear device
eight-hundred and someodd feet into the asteroid (!). 

In the coarse of all this mayhem, we are introduced to some interesting -
and not so interesting - characters. Belonging to the former group is
Rockhound (Steve Buscemi), a horny little womanizing genius who's always
full of wisecracks, even when flying into space at a huge amount of G's.
Also, there's the always cool-as-hell Billy Bob Thornton as Dan Truman, the
bigwig at NASA who recruits all the drillers. He kind of reminded me of Ed
Harris in Apollo 13, only without the intensity and great lines to deliver.
Then on the flip side of the coin is the tired, contrived character of
Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis, who does the whole movie employing with
annoying accent I can't quite place), the leader of the pack as well as Liv
Tyler and Ben Affleck as the token lovers you must have in any summer
movie. 

Basically, that's about it. As I said, this is hardly a film about plot.
It's another summer blockbuster with plot points that are beyond
unbelievable and dialogue and characters that are mostly completely wooden.
Case in point: NASA doesn't know that there is even an asteroid on it's way
until eighteen days before impact - huh? Another example: at one point in
the movie, two children are playing with toy space shuttles in front of a
poster of Kennedy. How pretentious is that???!!! Want another one? Okay;
before the oil drillers blast off into space, one of them starts singing
"Leaving on a Jet Plane", and soon, all the rest join in. Did Michael Bay
attend the school of sappy filmmaking before he made this picture? 

But naturally, all this sappiness, melodrama and special effects accumulate
to one bitchin' time at the movies. And don't get me wrong - despite all of
the things I found wrong with Armageddon, I still very much enjoyed it. So
even if you don't win one of McDonald's free tickets, it's still definitely
worth checking out. 

Copyright 1998 Jason Wallis 

Jason Wallis
[email-masked]
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Boulevard/7475