A fun adventure

Rating: 8/10 (19 December 2018)

In 65 million BC, an asteroid is hurtling towards earth, making a devastating impact. Charlton Heston narrates: "This is the earth at the time the dinosaurs roamed a lush and fertile planet. A piece of rock just six miles wide changed all that. It struck with the force of 10,000 nuclear weapons. A million tons of dirt and rock hurtles into the atmosphere, creating a suffocating blanket of ash and dust the sun was powerless to penetrate for 1000 years. It happened before. It will happen again. It's only a matter of when."
In the present, the shuttle Atlantis is destroyed in space by a meteor shower. Not knowing what's heading their way, the US upgrades to DEFCON 3. The meteors bombard the north Atlantic, with massive destruction shown in New York. At the same time, an amateur astronomer spots a mysterious anomaly in space.
NASA Director Dan Truman, on speaking with the amateur, moves the Hubble Telescope, and spots a Texas-sized asteroid on a direct collision course with earth. It'll hit in 18 days. "It doesn't matter where it hits. Nothing will survive - not even bacteria."
Thus begins 1998's most successful film, ARMAGEDDON. As you can guess from it's opening, it's a highly fun action-disaster film. True, it's science fiction, and it's not scientifically accurate - but who cares? It's highly fun to watch. There are some awkward scenes in the first half of the film - but the second half more than makes up for it. The action is awesome, the premise is scary (especially when one considers that in real life, WE COULDN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT), and the special effects are AWESOME!
An awesome movie.