Armageddon A Good But Overlong Action Aventure

Rating: 6/10 (15 June 2009)

Armageddon is a good but overlong action adventure from director Michael Bay who does show his talent with this movie but the running time of 150 minutes does weight it down a bit. Bay none the less proves to be a skilled filmmaker no matter how good or bad his movies turned out. The talented cast are admirable in their roles including Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thorton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, Will Patton, and Steve Buscemi. Jason Isaacs, Keith David, Peter Storemare, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Owen Wilson in a brief appearance are effective as the supporting characters in their limited screen time. The special effects are state of the art even though you can tell it's CGI. The action sequences are intense but it's the scenes in between and the slow pace at times is what hurt the film the most at least to me. The music seemed to sync very well with what was happening on the screen including the song by Aerosmith and it fit the tone of the film.There was some suspense build up as the giant asteroid in space gets closer and closer to Earth while the heroes desperately try to destroy it in time to save their planet. The ending was touching but I found it to be a little predictable but fortunately the good outweighs the bad in this one. Armageddon isn't a great movie but it's not too bad either if it had been shorter I probably would've enjoyed the film more than I did. Overall despite it's flaws, Armageddon is an overlong but for the most part an entertaining adventure with just enough action, some suspense, thrills, impressive special effects, humor, a little romance, and good performances by the cast who make it worth watching at least once.