Not terrible, but quite close

Rating: 5/10 (3 April 2002)

Having seen "Armageddon" and a lot of other crappy action movies, I have to say that this one is not as poor with the absolute disasters like "Speed 2", "Battlefield Earth" or "Godzilla", but it comes pretty close.
"Armageddon" has a little more dialgue and story then most other brainless action movies (some of the dialogue is even funny !) but it all feels very predictable. The "love story" is way to drawn out and the plot is little more then a series of things that go wrong ("Ok...the drill just broke down. Let's see..what can we do next...right...make the nuclear missile go off prematurely...what's next...an intergalactic storm...OK"), and kill almost the entire supporting cast. Not very much new or exciting here.
It's also inexcusable that the movie is so sentimental and/or patriotic. OK, I'm used to Americans saving the world by now, but do they have to make it THIS obvious? Also, why are we supposed to care about a small group of paper-thin characters, while at the same time large cities filled with millions of people get wiped of the earth without anybody in the movie seeming to care?
"Armageddon" is not completely stupid and it's even a little funny sometimes, but it's also sentimental, predictable and boring.
* out of **** stars