Oh dear...A popcorn crunching, no brainer piece of junk

Rating: 4/10 (31 January 2002)

"Armageddon" is the sort of movie that people can use to point out the decline in Hollywood standards. It's bubble-gum/popcorn/no-brains mass-market and lowest common denominator fare. It's a pile of well marketed (and somewhat executed) drivel. Leave your brains behind for this one.
Let's look at the things it did well first - "Armageddon" looks mostly pretty in terms of the visual effects - watch those cities get destroyed (although the New York one is extremely eerie). That's not surprising - when you have the likes of Jerry Bruckheimer producing it generally means a meaty budget. The movie is swiftly paced - you're launched immediately into the action and given little time to start thinking (because then you'd begin to savage it). The sound editing is also fairly spot on - sharp and crisp and generally well timed.
And now for all the rest... I can't let the plot go by. It's completely and utterly ridiculous. The crew have gone on record as admitting that the science of the movie is a load of cobblers and it is - sound and fires in an area with no atmosphere, gravity where it shouldn't be, never ending count-downs, a weakly contrived solution to the asteroid problem... the list goes on and on. "Memento" it ain't.
As the movie is fairly fast we're not meant to consider this (and apparently the movie producers felt we were too stupid to notice them anyway) but we cannot help but consider the sloppy direction that Michael Bey employs at times of fast action - which is shaking the camera all over the place in a manner that's meant to emulate the terror and confusion of the scene but instead merely irritates and detracts from the moment.
As for the acting - *shudder*. It's no surprise Liv Tyler got nominated for a Golden Razzie and that Bruce Willis actually won one for this picture. The characters are so thinly drawn and so hammy that I actually laughed when they opened their lines at the drivel they spewed. Talented actors like Steve Buscemi and Billy Bob Thornton are wasted here - you can't lend that much talent when the character you're playing is riddled with more cliches than a millipede has legs.
May I make a point about patriotism and family values? This movie features an American Presidential speech so cringe-inducing it makes Bill Pullman's from ID4 seem positively mellow. Let's not forget the schmaltzy family scenes we're forced to witness every now and then as families prepare for the end (good riddance to them) and the scenes of the world anxiously awaiting freedom from America (as if any other country could help out...). Then there's the love-scenes between Tyler and Affleck that make you hope they never get back together to avoid future wincings from the agonized viewer. And many other overly-sentimental poorly-executed moments that will make you understand subtlety is not a word these people are familiar with.
"Armageddon" does everything brash and bold in an attempt to woo us that the shuddering mess underneath is actually a decent picture. Well - it isn't. If you can leave your brain at the door and turn off all critical faculties you may enjoy this other brainless hookum. If, like me, you're a discerning viewer than don't bother yourself the pain. The only thing I'll take from this movie is the eerie sight of the Twin Towers after the meteor strike and their resemblance to the actual attack's aftermath. Which still leaves me giving the movie 4/10.