A seizure-inducing crapfest...

Rating: 1/10 (29 August 2015)

There are few films I truly loathe, as I am a connoisseur of the 'so bad it's good' genre of movie-making. This distinction, however, is nearly always applied to low-budget grade-Z schlock and sci-fi. "Armageddon" had a humongous budget of $140,000,000 in 1998 (I'd like to know the chunk of change that went into Bruce Willis' pocket). This movie defies belief in some ways, and has qualities that warrant my loathing: 1) Editing from hell. The jump-cutting and jarring editing throughout this film could have been dangerous to some (seriously); e.g. epileptics (seizures)and bipolar people such as myself (inducing a manic episode). As I struggled through this thing, annoyance can hardly describe the what the images displayed so frenetically on screen did to me and I hadn't received my diagnosis yet back then.
2) The utterly-preposterous storyline. I know, I know, it's science fiction but the plotting and side stories go beyond the absurd and ridiculous. The people recruited for the mission are as stereotypically-contrived as they come. None of this stuff is believable, for one second. I think even a hint of believability should be necessary to drive a plot. Perhaps that was the point, but it didn't work for this reviewer.
3) Bruce Willis. I begrudgingly liked him in "Unbreakable", "The Sixth Sense", and the first "Die Hard" film but here he's just a macho schmuck. As John McClain, Mr. Willis was a true bad-ass who, through tremendous perseverance and over-the-top police work, you wanted to see kick those villainous terrorist's cumulative butts; here, you want to see him REALLY get hurt to shut him up.
4) Billy-Bob Thornton. I loved this guy in "Sling Blade" a few years before, where his mentally-challenged character, Karl Childers, was a wonder to behold. Original and moving, that movie was his; here, you almost expect him to wink at the audience at his un-dynamic choice of roles here. His character has NOTHING TO DO. He's wasted, as maybe he was in another way during this film's shooting schedule.
5) The director, Michael Bay. Oh my, what this man has done to film-making. Overblown, over-hyped, over-everything-ed, and ultimately mind-numbing pap for the masses. A popcorn flick you say? I'd gag on it, watching this case of celluloid dreck. I'd strongly prefer a cheaply-made bug-eyed monster flick from the 50s on You Tube, instead.