Still you can't help loving old Bruce, if for nothing else his sporting new hairdo.

Rating: Null/10 (13 December 1999)

NB:SPOILERS INCLUDED

Although Armageddon has more testosterone than Liv Tyler has collagen implants, it never tries to be any more than the genre permits. Keeping this in mind I defy anyone that doesn't enjoy it, for the visual attributes alone. Firstly it's an extremely unbelievable scenario that NASA would have no better scheme to save the planet, than to drill a hole into a global killer. For all their technology they can only think to nuke it. However the characters equal disbelief of the plot, helps us to get through this.
In the initial scenes we find ourselves thrust (no pun intended), into the immediate drama of the government discovering a meteoric shower. The fact that New York has just been blown to smithereens might have given it away, but as an audience we find ourselves strangely believing the US military fool enough to mistake this for a possible nuclear assault. After all these are the men who did not assassinate Saddam Hussein. I found myself immediately drawn in by Eddie Griffin, a familiar black face, great. As a WB sitcom star I expected him to be in a supporting role at least, I was soon to discover he was very disposable. What an excellent casting choice, taking a well-known comedian and turning him into.a bike riding bum? Here begins our journey into.well the end of the world really.
Michael Bay truly pleased the "drunken, hormonally charged populous" with immediate explosions and military conflict. Enter Harry Stamper (a.k.a. Bruce Willis) with a god-awful accent, swinging golf balls of an oil rig. This is the person to whom the responsibility of saving the world will fall, a man on an oil rig assaulting Green-Peace activists. Still you can't help loving old Bruce, if for nothing else his sporting new hairdo. Then we're introduced to the other main characters of the film, the "it boy", A. J. (Ben Affleck) and the "lip girl", Grace (Liv Tyler). Which leads us nicely into the age-old shotgun scene. You know the one, father tells son equivalent to stop taking risks, finds son equivalent screwing daughter. Chases him with large semi automatic weapon, annoys Japanese investors, strikes oil and gets asked to save entire population. You know that old chestnut. A good portion of this picture basically consists of a bunch of drilling misfits learning to become astronauts in 10 days, on the premise that Brucey feels that the real astronauts "may be NASA's finest but they don't know a damn thing about drilling". With this logic in mind, I suppose it would make more sense to teach oil riggers to become astronauts, than teaching the astronauts to drill. Astrophysics, drilling, astrophysics, drilling. Tough call Harry.Admittedly there was a lot wrong with this movie, unnecessary footage for the sake of BMW, unnecessary people (i.e. the stripper who looked like Eva Herzigova). Even when appealing to our basic lusts, we all wanted to see Ben and Live get busy, (after all they're both so pretty) it was an anticlimax. I'm sure I wasn't the only one in the audience thinking for God sake Ben hurry up and get her skirt up and stop farting around with those bloody animal crackers!
Then there was the script, constantly confusing me with its changes in tone and content. Just when characters said semi-meaningful words, filled with doubt, fear or emotion about the possibility that they might not succeed in destroying the meteorite. They'd ruin the moment by announcing they were going to "tear this bitch up". Perhaps this was due to the fact that they had simply too many writers, Shane Salerno, Ann Biderman and Academy winner Robert Towne obviously work better alone. This also left me wondering were these intentional lapses into manly behavior, or were they simply trying to please the beer swilling populous?
I'm was also wondering about the choice of actors, Brucey triumphs in his element. Even though he's getting on a bit, we all still love Brucey. Bruce is cool, Bruce is a hero, Bruce is in very familiar territory. This is Die-Hard in space Part 2 (part 1 being The 5th Element). Then there's Grace how aptly named, Liv looks great in this movie, but she just can't act the part (especially when it comes to shouting). She's like Milla, but they don't treat her as such, for Gods sake scantily clad the girl and make sure she doesn't have too many lines. As for Ben well he has no place here at all, we expect sarcastic comedy from Ben, or at the very least poignant drama. We do not expect fighting words, it's hard to take him seriously, but maybe we're not supposed too.
There were some great supporting performances, personally I felt Steve Buscemi stole the show as the neurotic secret genius. Mr. Buscemi was also responsible for capturing the world's most crooked teeth in the most unflattering camera angle of cinematic history. The graphics were in themselves like a supporting character, they played a very important role in this movie. Believable devastation's of small Asian villages that near brought tears to my eyes, hats off to the combined efforts of Dream Quest Images, Vision Crew and Digital Magic. The casting director should have been shot; she'd made one mistake too many by this point. There really was no need to cast such attractive extra's, I'm convinced I saw the most handsome goat herder known to man.
However if you just cringe at the one-liners, and try to ignore at the all American hero aspect. Let the bad casting of Ben and Liv slide, and revel in the glorious graphics and Brucey at his best, you won't be disappointed. If you want a more realistic interpretation of Armageddon, I suggest Mimi Leders "Deep Impact". I honestly enjoyed the movie but when I left the theater my mind wasn't contemplating the possibility of hurtling meteorites, instead I was left puzzling "now which one was on special K, was it the cowboy or Mr. Pink?"