One of the best movies I have ever seen.

Rating: 8/10 (28 June 2005)

I've watched this movie a number of times, and it remains one of my all-time favorites. I know that a number of people, namely critics, hate this movie, for reasons that continue to elude me. In my mind, this is a fun, big-budget movie with great acting.
The premise is that NASA and its director, Dan Truman (Billy Bob Thornton) has discovered that a meteor the size of Texas is going to hit the Earth in eighteen days and cause a complete extinction of nearly all life on the planet. After putting all their heads together, their best idea is...to drill into the asteroid's core and blow it up from the inside?! So they call in the best of the best, Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) and his team of oil drillers.
As for the acting, while I'm not a huge fan of Thornton ("Monster's Ball" "Friday Night Lights"), he did a more than serviceable job as Truman. As always, Willis ("Sin City" "Pulp Fiction" the "Die Hard" movies) is inherently likable and can deliver any one-liner, no matter how corny it is, and make it seem bad-a$$. Liv Tyler ("Lord of the Rings" "Inventing The Abbotts) plays Harry's daughter Grace who has grown up on oil rigs with her over-protective dad. While I'm not a fan of Tyler, either, she did very well in this movie. Ben Affleck ("Good Will Hunting" "Changing Lanes") plays A.J., the young driller who is constantly at odds with Harry but also happens to be engaged to Grace. While everyone and their mother currently seems to be in a "Ben Affleck is the worst actor ever and deserves to rot in hell" mode, this movie is yet another movie to refute this claim. Affleck is confident, but not cocky, and like Willis, is both inherently likable and has some pretty good one-liners. In fact, of the four stars in this movie, Affleck is probably the best.
Harry's crew also includes his longtime friend Chick (Will Patton, "Remember The Titans" "Gone In Sixty Seconds"), the big Bear (Michael Clarke Duncan, "The Green Mile" "Sin City"), the horny Rockhound (Steve Buscemi, "Con Air" "Fargo"), the cowboy-like Oscar (Owen Wilson, "Starsky and Hutch" "Zoolander"), Noonan (Clark Heathcliffe Brolly), and Max (Ken Campbell). Keith David ("Pitch Black" "Crash") plays General Kimsey, who opposes every move NASA makes, and Jason Issacs (the "Harry Potter" movies, "The Patriot") plays NASA's super intelligent scientist. William Fichtner ("Crash" "The Perfect Storm"), one of my personal favorite actors, plays Colonel Sharp, one of the astronauts who must help guide the team on the asteroid. If you haven't been able to tell by now, the supporting cast is an all-star one and does a brilliant job.
The effects in the movie are very good, and it is obvious this was a high-budget film. Yes, there are some anomalies and other oddities, but for crying out loud, it's a movie! It's allowed to change things (to a degree) to help them be more entertaining. There are mistakes like this in all movies simply to make it more coherent, dramatic, etc. As long as this doesn't bother you, you should be pleased with what this movie has to offer.
My biggest complaints are that in some scenes, especially those containing spaceships, it seem to have gotten edited too fast, leaving a bit of confusion as to what exactly's happening until the dust settles, and that the dialogue can be corny on some rare occasions ("This is one order you shouldn't follow and you f**king know it.")which is surprising considering J.J. Abrams of "Alias" and "Lost" fame is listed as a screenwriter. Neither of these flaws are that detrimental.
So in my opinion give this movie a shot. You may be pleasantly surprised.