armageddon , in itself , symbolizes everything that is wrong in modern filmmaking .
stories have been replaced with special effects ; character development gets overshadowed by bad dialogue ; plotting consists of a bunch of shit getting blown up .
armageddon is as stupid , as loud and as shallow as any movie you 'll see
come out this summer , or maybe even any other summer .
but i loved every freaking minute of it .
believe me , i 'm just as shocked as you are .
hell , i do n't even know why i went to see it in the first place .
the previews were so annoying that i predicted this was going to be the worst film of the year , or at least in the running .
i 'm sorry , but " somebody dial 911 ! ! !
" is n't quite the tagging that 's going to sell a movie .
it is n't too wise either to market the film using the movie 's stupidest lines ( " beam me up scotty " - yeah ,
that sure is great writing . .. ) .
i mean , let 's face it
; armageddon 's previews rival the truman show 's as being some of the worst of the year .
neither of them even come close to doing their respective films justice .
of course , you all know the story .
when the earth is threatened with total annihilation via an asteroid the size of texas , nasa calls in the us 's top oil drillers ( ! ) to go into space ( ! ) and implant a nuclear device eight - hundred and someodd feet into the asteroid ( ! ) .
in the coarse of all this mayhem , we are introduced to some interesting - and not so interesting - characters .
belonging to the former group is rockhound ( steve buscemi ) ,
a horny little womanizing genius who 's always full of wisecracks , even when flying into space at a huge amount of g 's . also
, there 's the always cool - as - hell
billy bob thornton as dan truman ,
the bigwig at nasa who recruits all the drillers .
he kind of reminded me of ed harris in apollo 13 , only without the intensity and great lines to deliver .
then on the flip side of the coin is the tired , contrived character of harry stamper ( bruce willis , who does the whole movie employing with annoying accent i ca n't quite place ) , the leader of the pack as well as liv tyler and ben affleck as the token lovers you must have in any summer movie .
basically , that 's about it .
as i said , this is hardly a film about plot .
it 's another summer blockbuster with plot points that are beyond unbelievable and dialogue and characters that are mostly completely wooden .
case in point : nasa does n't know that there is even an asteroid on
it 's way until eighteen days before impact - huh ?
another example : at one point in the movie , two children are playing with toy space shuttles in front of a poster of kennedy .
how pretentious is that ? ? ? ! ! !
want another one ?
okay
; before the oil drillers blast off into space , one of them starts singing " leaving on a jet plane " , and soon , all the rest join in .
did michael bay attend the school of sappy filmmaking before he made this picture ?
but naturally , all this sappiness , melodrama and special effects accumulate to one bitchin ' time at the movies .
and do n't get me wrong - despite all of the things i found wrong with armageddon , i still very much enjoyed it .
so even if you do n't win one of mcdonald 's free tickets , it 's still definitely worth checking out .
Output: P