This just goes too far sometimes, but it's good

Rating: 7/10 (16 June 2007)

I'll say it straight out, this movie let me down quite a lot. I wanted an epic badass of a film that would revolutionize the way I see movies. I got an epic behemoth of a film with more then ample doses of goofy monkeying around inserted sometimes at the most inappropriate of scenes. Bruce Willis stars in this movie along with Ben Afleck and Liv Tyler as two young lovers, and it's safe to say that there aren't too many complaints with the acting (although admittedly there were some weak spots there, too).
No, my main problem with this movie is the comedy. Now, I'm all for comedy, but the directors of Armageddon didn't seem to be taking their own plot too seriously at some point. I was in awe at the utter stupidity of the characters in this movie, especially toward the second half of it, and specifically Rockhound (Steve Buscemi, who does do a very good job acting here anyway). We all need some lighthearted fun in our movies, but what we don't need is for the comedy to interfere with the dramatic parts of the movie, which it almost does a few times here. Rockhound's foolishness and monkeying around almost ruins several scenes and it doesn't fit with the whole theme of saving the Earth. Why did they even put the parts involving the stripper and then later the machine gun on the asteroid into the movie? It's safe to tell who we can all throw rocks at for ruining the movie. Why on earth is he so lenient about it? It makes no sense. I can say the same thing for most of the crew at the beginning, too, they seem awfully laid back for a bunch of guys about to go save the world. Bear was falling asleep and making comments about a hot girl during the teaching sessions. What? Like I said, I like comedy fine, but here it just hinders what would otherwise be a phenomenal movie.
This movie is full of explosions (big explosions, too, we're not talking about little buildings. We're talking entire cities all at once here. That's epic.), romantic love scenes, and other action clichés. They're actually done quite well, until we get Rockhound or Bear making more dumbass jokes. The whole mishmash makes Armageddon look like a PARODY of the action genre at some points, and it hurts the score. A lot. If I were to see this movie without any prior knowledge of action movies, and having never seen one before this, I would get a flawed first impression of the genre. It's not quite to the level of Scary Movie and Date Movie, of course, but it's not an upstanding example of how to incorporate comedy into an action movie. See Die Hard 3 or The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly for that. Sorry, but Armageddon just goes too far overboard sometimes.
No, I don't hate this movie though. I do like it quite a lot. It's great fun for a Saturday night with friends or if you've been drinking (lol). The ending scenes with Willis and Afleck are very touching, as are most of the scenes involving Liv Tyler. It's also got some extremely triumphant moments, and the explosions and special effects are amazingly done. Check out those skies toward the end! The scenes with Chick (Will Patton) and his ex-wife and son are extremely touching, and are the saving grace of the quieter parts of the movie. Beautiful. And like I mentioned before, it's EPIC. In all caps, too. There aren't many other movies like this that can touch it in epic-ness. Not even Die Hard or it's sequels are more epic than this monster of a film.
Recommended to action fans who can stand stupidity in their movie-viewing. I'll be watching this one again, too.