Put Your Brain On Hold and Enjoy the Adrenaline Rush if You Can

Rating: 6/10 (19 June 2009)

A deep core drilling team lead by Bruce Willis and including Ben Affleck and Steve Buscemi are the Earth's only hope to prevent a massive asteroid from devastating the planet. Despite there lack of experience in space they are the only ones with the requisite skills and thus are sent to land on the aforementioned asteroid. We also have Liv Tyler as both the daughter of Bruce Willis and the love interest of Ben Affleck. While Billy Bob Thornton rounds out the all-star cast as the NASA Administrator.
Sure it's ridiculous with plot holes as big as the 'Texas sized' meteor, and the intrepid shuttle crew is faced with one contrived potential disaster after another, not to mention a heap of incredibly obvious emotional manipulation. The scene where the Russian cosmonaut and the Russian space station are introduced is incredibly over the top. But it is still an exciting adrenaline filled summer blockbuster, though far from the best of its ilk.
On a few positive notes, the special effects are for the most part quite good for its time, the performers are likable and the emotional manipulation despite its heavy handedness can still be effective.
The shots from the second unit which feature a vast array of citizens from all over the world waiting for the oncoming disaster and for the Americans to save the day of course are so ambiguously commercial that you could slap any corporate logo in the world on top and produce a very nice looking 30 second television commercial.