Armageddon (1998) Review
Dir Michael Bay
Written by Jonathan Hensleigh, JJ Abrams, Tony Gilroy, Shane Salerno, Robert Roy.
Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, Steve Buscemi, Will Patton, William Fichtner, Owen Wilson, Michael Clarke Duncan, Peter Stomare, Keith David, Jason Isaacs, Ken Hudson Campbell.
One of the two asteroid movies of 1998; in this NASA discovers a comet the size of Texas is going to hit Earth in 18 days. Figuring their best way to destroy it is to put a nuclear weapon deep inside it and blow it up. So they reach out to deep core drilling expert Harry Stamper (Willis) to help, but he wants his team to go with him.
There is also ample Bay type action, almost from the get go with a devastating meteor shower hitting New York with scenes normally found in Roland Emmerich films. From there it does not really let up, and his trademark use of camera work and colour contrast is front and centre here.
At two and a half hours, it does feel draggy in places, despite that the majority of the action sequences on the asteroid itself occurs in the last hour of the film.
The relationships between characters feel minimalistic, and generic. Some of the acting is a little wooden by some of the cast, but it also over the top characters played by an impressive list of character actors. The two sometimes are a intertwined in one scene and this is a little off putting.
The screenplay isn’t terrible at times, and there is a fairly emotionally powerful monologue by a ‘powerful’ character, that feels like it could have been better if this role had been cast better, and been established to be stronger previously. This is no fault of the actor who played him (as he has sadly passed away since this film was made.) However, with five people at the helm of the screenplay, there seems to be too many ideas being thrown out.
The big up for me is the score by Trevor Rabin, and it is a big strength of the film.
There are obvious technical inconsistencies, and most of the plot is fairly ludicrous, but if you’re looking for something to entertain you for a couple of hours, this is a solid late 1990’s effort.
3/5
