Review of Armageddon (1998) by Timothy S — 13 Jul 2014

The second of 1998's big asteroid movies, "Armageddon", is the less scientific, more crowd-pleasing of the two and it has more in common with "Independence Day" than the similarly themed "Deep Impact". There are a lot of larger than life characters, silly and overwrought patriotic spectacles and questionable realism, but much like the alien invasion picture, the whole mess is terribly entertaining.

It's the perfect summer movie, an epic that is stupid but light years ahead of the stupid epics that director Michael Bay would become synonymous with like the dreadful "Transformers" flicks that occupy so much of his time now. Bay and his tremendous cast sell this outlandish plot, the humor works and the special effects are quite impressive as this is one blockbuster where you can see all of the money spent on the screen.

Bruce Willis is tailor-made for the film, a huge action star that still manages to humanize the story and keeps it grounded, and the rest of the assorted oddballs in the cast each get their moment in the sun. The whole film is as corny as they come, and I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that it won me over. The quiet scenes between Liv Tyler and Ben Affleck are sweet in a weird (very weird) way, and a great soundtrack can take a good or even mediocre film a long way. It does that here. Aerosmith's Oscar nominated "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" is as bold and bombastic as the film, therefor it's a natural fit.

"Armageddon" takes science, common sense and logic and throws them all out the window but still manages to deliver a winning, entertaining and crowd-pleasing popcorn flick that delivers the goods.