A pretty good movie, until they take off into space.

Rating: 6/10 (13 July 1999)

You've got a disaster movie about an asteroid coming straight to Earth and a possibility of killing all human kind. Than you put Bruce Willis in the starring role and cast a wide collection of colorful supporting characters. With all this, it would be impossible to make a boring movie. In fact, this was beginning to be the best disaster movie since the Poseidan Adventure, but then they took off into space and this movie went all to hell. Bruce Willis basically plays himself as the best oil driller on Earth and is called up to destroy the asteroid heading to the Earth. Of course, Willis needs his crew to get the job done. Ben Affleck is a good young actor, but he needs to choose better roles, because all he does in this movie is place himself as a teen idol stud and not a promising actor. I think Liv Tyler is highly overrated not only in looks, but also abilities. Consider that Tyler was out-acted by Alicia Silverstone in the Aerosmith videos, that is very sad.Thankfully, led by Will Patton and Steve Buscemi, the rest of the crew is wonderful and sets this movie off with a bang during an excellent first half of the movie, showing them training and pulling off non-stop comedy and intelligent dialogue. But like I said before, than they had to take off. As soon as you see space in this film, it takes a huge nose dive. At this point, Billy Bob Thornton gains a big chunk of control in this movie and that isn't good. Thornton did a great job in Sling Blade, but since that he has virtually done a terrible job in anything since and this is no exception. The whole space mission is hobbled through the fact that too much happens with questionable possibilities. Buscemi goes AWOL, but somehow becomes a hero. Than you have to see Willis meet his fatal ending. It really sucks to see Willis die in anything. Plus, was it just me who notices that there space outfits change colors all the time while they're up in space? I don't know what they were thinking when they did the last hour or so of this film, but it seems like there were two directors and screen writers on this film. This movie is headed into history as being a great disaster film and turns into just a fun movie to watch for a while. Bruckheimer has yet to find anything as good as Top Gun still. I give this movie a 6 out of 10.