Armageddon (1998)

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi disaster action, sensuality and brief language.

150 Minutes

The fate of the planet is in the hands of a bunch of retards I wouldn’t trust with a potato gun.

Synopsis

There is an Asteroid heading for Earth, what do you do?  Well, NASA calls some honky tonk drillers and shuttles them up there to drill a nuclear bomb into it’s core so it doesn’t destroy Earth.  Yup, that’s it.

Review

Deep Impact came out the same year as Armageddon and I suffer the displeasure of having seen each atrocity in the theatre.  Disaster movies were very prevalent in the late nineties, and at this point as long as stuff blew up and lives were in peril a script seemed acceptable.  It also explains why Micheal Bay was chosen for this movie.  As a fan of his, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, he was just the wrong choice for this movie.  In fact, having a cast period was a bad choice for this movie.  The script should by all means still be sitting somewhere gathering dust.  Instead, we have a movie that spends nearly two and half hours stumbling through weak versions of Ren and Stimpy humour wondering if these oil drillers can achieve their goal more soundly than trained professional blower uppers.  They should have just skipped the semantics and sent Micheal Bay directly to the Asteroid.  It would have exploded and the movie would have been over in twenty minutes.  Twenty of course because Micheal Bay would make sure is was a super big and cool special effect!

I absolutely detest this poor excuse for a film.  The only semi-remarkable part of it, was the comic relief of Steve Buscemi.  Next to the other living dead he was inter-connecting with he seemed to be the only one with flowing blood and the ability to think.  In fact, he even cracked the ocassional funny joke.

Cast

• Bruce Willis as Harry Stamper
• Ben Affleck as A.J. Frost
• Billy Bob Thorton as Dan Truman NASA Administrator
• Liv Tyler as Grace Stamper
• Steve Buscemi as Rockhound
• Owen Wilson as Oscar Choi, Geologist
• Micheal Clark Duncan as Jayotis “Bear” Kurleenbear
• Will Patton as Charles “Chick” Chapple

The acting had no choice but to be bad when a script essentially didn’t even exist.  Bruce Willis as stoic and determined is hardly a stretch.  Ben Affleck as carefree and whimsical is obviously not a stretch, and Liv Tyler as annoying, not a stretch.  Even the only saving grace in the realm of comedy and some form of entertainment was Steve Buscemi who played a weirdo, just like he always does.  All of the character’s were so banal the actors had nothing to work with, and none of them seemed to really rise above the writing.

Ratings and Suggestions

If you want to see a good Astronaut movie go see Apollo 13 or The Right Stuff.  If you want to waste two and a half hours of your time and lose I.Q. points for having seen it, please, I implore you…..Armageddon and it’s melodramatic title is your cup of tea.  The only redeeming thing about this film was the Areosmith song and that’s because it was at the end of the movie.  What a waste of explosives.  No stars available to give.  Micheal Bay blew them all up with the Asteriod the size of Texas.