The Mountain of Assembly

Rating: 8/10 (21 February 1999)

The summer of 1998 was mostly unremarkable, with the majority of films failing to impress. The overblown Godzilla was a humongous letdown, as was Armageddon's rival Deep Impact. Armageddon came out champ of the summer season (along with Saving Private Ryan, Lethal Weapon 4, and There's Something About Mary). But none of these films managed to push past $217 million, which would be absolutely unthinkable now, inflation or not.
Despite the relatively low box office returns (just a smidgen over $200 million), the marketing machine for Armageddon was in our faces everywhere, and I feared it might burn-out audiences before release. I know I felt a little cynical when I went into the cinema that day, my expectations very low.
I've said before that Michael Bay does himself no favors. The man knows how to make a blockbuster, but he's utterly clueless when it comes to making a good film. Armageddon is the only film in his entire resume that I find watchable and entertaining, though he still should have held back some scenes (the notorious animal cracker love scene really should have been dropped).
A big boulder of iron ferite hurtles through space, knocking smaller meteors toward Earth (thinking of breaking a frame on a pool table). NASA recruits immature oil driller Harry Tasker and his band of roughnecks to go into space and nuke the comet before it ends all life our little blue planet. With an 18-day countdown it's going to be very, very close.
Although it took a total of 18 writers to staple the screenplay together, Armageddon succeeds in almost every area where Deep Impact failed, plus more. The soap opera is kept to a minimum while the action is ramped up, delivering one hair's-breadth escape after another, all to the sound of Trevor Rabin's amazing score, which the life blood of the movie. The huge cast of fine actors, the SFX, and the action would all be significantly inferior without Rabin's soaring tunes, which turn many of the key scenes into wordless music videos of visual storytelling.
That's not to say that the acting isn't notable. As a matter of fact, Bruce Willis is surprisingly effective, as is Will Patton, who rarely gets a decent role in mainstream movies. Though, as with Con Air a year before, Steve Buscemi owns every scene he's in (tying with Peter Stormare). Just ignore the horribly miscast Ben Affleck whenever he appears. He's the only real weak link of the movie, to the point where you ought to switch off during his screen-time.
As the only truly exciting blockbuster of the 1998 summer season, Armageddon defines a lackluster year, and elevates Michael Bay's classless resume. It's exciting, colorful entertainment, and none-the-worse for it.