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 kinnopio@execpc.com -- Kinnopio's Movie Reviews http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio
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