With this promo you'd think the studio hot shots got a piece of the rock in the head

Rating: 9/10 (31 January 1999)

Once again Bruce Willis is given the simple task of saving the world in this mega-zillion-budget bigboys' joyride. An asteroid the size of Texas is about to do to us what another big rock did to the dinosaurs millions of years back (as we are told by Charlton "Moses" Heston in the opening credits). Swedish Peter Stormare -who steals every scene he's in as a russian cosmonaut- said to the media after seeing the final version of "Armageddon" that "They cut out all the good parts!", and apparently ever since he has tried to forget he ever involved himself in this project. The movie sure looks like they left hours on the cutting room floor, but if you just don't think too much about it what's left still makes for good friday night entertainment. Buscemi is once again left with all the smart remarks. He even does an homage to Slim Pickens in "Dr Strangelove"! Only big quibble; watching the whole shabang makes the tagline "For love. For honor. For mankind." seem laughable and stupid. Sure, it "moves" our feelings a bit towards the end but how serious can a film like this take itself ? We're talking about a movie where oil drillers from mother Earth play Evil Knievel on an asteroid as it closes in on a head-on collision with earth! One plus; for the first time in years a movie about a crisis involving the whole planet actually shows several scenes from the WHOLE PLANET (like India, France, etc) instead of just pretending that the US is the centre of the universe. It's just about what one would excpect from Jerry Bruckheimer and an asteroid, and it's not half as bad as they say.