Confessions of an "Armageddon" detractor.

Rating: 2/10 (2 June 2001)

Am I "geddin'" it?
No.
"I hate this movie," I'll say. I expect at least five to ten people will agree with me.
Instead, jaws drop. Faces turn pale. I am stared at aghast like an inhuman monstrosity.
"How can you hate this movie?!?" It's apparently not normal. "It's so realistic! It's so romantic! It's life-affirming! My uncle watched it once and his chronic nostril acne vanished the next day!
"What the heck is WRONG with you, Gremlin?" they ask, appalled by my degenerate point of view. "How can you POSSIBLY hate this movie?"
Let me count the ways:
ONE is for the fact that "Armageddon" proposes that it is easier to train a bunch of oil drillers to be astronauts (without a single one failing any test, and with a deadline set by a gigantic asteroid about to knock us out of orbit and send us screaming into the center of the sun) than it is to show a professional space team how to operate a drill.
TWO is for the destruction of New York City being practically forgotten after it happens. You'd expect something like that to at least make the national news in a few seconds but there's no mention of it once we're on the oil rig in the next scene.
THREE is for the introduction of Bruce Willis' character. He's supposed to be the hero. The audience isn't going to like the hero all that much if, the first time we meet him, he's chasing his daughter's boyfriend with a massive shotgun. (Well, you wouldn't THINK the audience would like him.)
FOUR is for how a single character dies in "Top Gun" (the Bruckheimer/Scott movie I actually like) and we're bawling, while the entire population of Paris is wiped out in "Armageddon" and it barely raises an eyebrow.
FIVE is for how everyone I've met enjoys this movie over "the Truman Show", which is like preferring the taste of dog food to Filet Mignon.
SIX is for how there's Earth normal gravity in the space station and the asteroid unless the plot requires for it to be less, so Ben Affleck can play Evil Knevil.
SEVEN is for how there are Dramatic Sunsets everywhere on Earth at the same time, ignoring time zones and the International Date Line.
EIGHT is for the Inevitable Red Wire/Green Wire Bomb Disarming Scene. First of all, I'm not a detonation expert but I'm pretty sure government issued bombs do not follow this pattern. Second of all, *ahem* THE GUY TRYING TO DISARM THE BOMB BUILT THE DAMN THING IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! Shouldn't he know how it works?
NINE is for the Touching Finale where a character must sacrifice himself so that he can set the bomb off, exploding the asteroid and saving the planet. So why in the heck does he feel it necessary to give a Big Long Soliloquy AT THE LAST MINUTE, THREATENING EVERY SINGLE CREATURE ON THE PLANET WITH AN AGONIZING DEATH, so he can say farewell to his friends?!?
TEN is for that damn Aerosmith song. It's their only number one hit. Of all their songs, that Dianne Warren penned tripe is the most popular. I'm going to cry.
"Armageddon" gets a big fat two stars, for the sake of inspiring a good parody on "Futurama" once. I'm grinding my teeth over giving it even that much.