Big dumb fun...

Rating: Null/10 (14 August 1999)

Lets get this out of the way right up front, Armageddon is basically just a popcorn movie, nothing more, nothing less. A thrillride made for mass entertainment rather than for any greater dramatic purpose, and to it's benefit it doesn't claim to be anything more than that. For some strange reason a lot of critics (both the profession and armchair versions) seem to regard films made for purely entertainment purposes with a sense of derision, but personally I think that such films are just as worthy as any other type of film, after all some times all we want is to be entertained. And that is exactly what Armageddon aims for, and for me that is pretty much exactly what it achieved, entertainment, pure and simple.
Armageddon has all the hallmarks of a great thrillride of a film, a top notch action director in Michael Bay, a great ensemble cast all giving well judged performances and a very good end of the world premise (however unlikely). The special effects are of course top notch, as one would expect from a film of this nature, and while some have complained about Bay's fast cut editing personally I never found it to be either intrusive or annoying, in fact I think that Bay captures the whole atmosphere of the film quite well, although I did find that a couple of the action scenes weren't quite as much of an adrenaline rush as they perhaps should have been. Still the vast majority of the film works and that is all that really counts. Also special kudos must go to Trevor Rabin's superb score which manages to perfectly capture and echo the mood of the film and the impressive cinematography of John Schwartzman.
There are some slight problems, such as the fact that even though all of the cast played their roles very well, most notably Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Will Patton, Ben Affleck and William Fichtner, the characters for the most part just seemed a little underdeveloped, and while they were fun characters to watch do their thing I would have liked to know more about them and what made them tick, which is something I feel is very important for this type of film to be a total success, however the (otherwise pretty solid) script just didn't quite deliver enough in this regard for me. That said it's not a major problem and is indeed true of most big budget popcorn flicks, and in fact Armageddon probably tries harder than most to paint it's myriad characters on it's broad canvas, but when it comes down to it there isn't really time to delve any deeper lest you want this to become a three hour plus 'action' film.
Overall Armageddon is probably the best of the years blockbusters, and while definitely not perfect is still a very entertaining ride that is well worth taking for those that enjoy pure, honest, unashamedly loud blockbusters that actually deliver the fun and thrills that they are designed to. Big dumb fun done right.
One man's opinion. 8.5/10