Armageddon

Rating: 6/10 (20 June 2005)

This asteroid movie was released only two and a half months after Deep Impact, which did well with critics and audiences, but apparently this one made more money, directed by Michael Bay (Bad Boys, The Rock, Pearl Harbor). Basically the Earth was hit by an asteroid millions of years ago, and it will happen again, it is just a question of when? After a series of small meteor strikes in New York, NASA are shocked to discover a meteor the size of Texas is hurtling towards the planet, and will hit in just over a month! NASA scientists, led by Dan Truman (Billy Bob Thornton), plan to drill into the core of the rock, trigger a thermonuclear detonation, and break it into two pieces that will safely pass Earth. The original plan was to have professional oil driller Harry S. Stamper (Bruce Willis) train a group of astronauts to use the drilling equipment, but he sees the only way to complete the mission is to volunteer himself, and bring his crew with him. Stamper's crew consists of Charles 'Chick' Chapple (Will Patton), Rockhound (Steve Buscemi), Oscar Choice (Owen Wilson), J. Otis 'Bear' Kurleen (The Green Mile's Michael Clarke Duncan), and A.J. Frost (Ben Affleck), who is in love with Stamper's daughter Grace (Liv Tyler). The plan is for two rockets to refuel on a Russian space station, then sligshot around the moon, coming up behind the meteor, landing on it as central as possible, and drilling at least 800ft to plant the nuclear weapon. After all the astronaut training, the motley oil-drilling gang, joined by professional astronaut Colonel Willie Sharp (William Fichtner), take off, they manage to refuel at the space station, but disaster strikes when a fire breaks out, its sole cosmonaut Lev Andropov (Peter Stormare) helps them evacuate. It gets tense for NASA when they lose communication for a few moments when the rocket goes behind the moon, but it manages to successfully sligshot around it. But then the debris coming from behind the meteor causes problems, one of the two rockets is badly damaged and crashes, while the other just about lands without trouble. Stamper's crew in the landed rocket start the drilling operation, the other half of the crew, including Frost, have survived the crash landing and start to travel back to the others. The meteor atmosphere causes many problems, with one or two crew members being killed by various incidents, and communication with NASA going awry, but Stamper is relieved when Frost and the others return to help. The surviving crew members successfully drill 800ft, but after an earlier mishap, the triggering device for the weapon has been damaged, meaning that someone will have to stay behind to trigger the blast. After drawing straws, Frost is the unlucky person that will stay behind, but Stamper escoring him grabs the trigger himself, and manipulates his way to take it, he is willing to sacrifice himself, he wants Frost to be happy and marry his daughter. The rocket blasts off, and Stamper detonates the nuclear weapon just in time before the blast would devastate Earth, and the rock has successfully broken into two pieces that pass Earth, and in the end, Grace and Frost get married. Also starring Keith David as General Kimsey, Jason Isaacs as Dr. Ronald Quincy, Chris Ellis as Flight Director Walter Clark and Udo Kier as Psychologist, with opening narration by Charlton Heston. This movie seems to be more about star power, special effects and thing going wrong, you could argue it is more style over substance, I agree the love story element is a little dumb, and the concept of drillers becoming the ones that save the world is a bit inconceivable, but it is certainly exciting, and the Oscar nominated "I Don't Want To Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith (lead singer Steven Tyler is Liv Tyler's father) is a great song, a worthwhile science-fiction disaster action adventure. It was nominated the Oscars for Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Visual Effects and Best Sound. Good!