Armageddon Review
by Mario Muredda (mario AT tyenet DOT com)July 16th, 1998
**1/2 out of ****
Ahh, the elusive summer movie. Expectations run dry, and mindless moviegoers scurry to theatres in delight. If you are one of those mindless moviegoers, odds are, you have seen Armageddon. Certainly a loud film, a truly neccessary quality in order to be a summer blockbuster, Armageddon will please its targeted audience, and disapoint everyone else, to my understanding. I went to this film with an open mind, and expected the worst, and surprisingly, I didn't get it. What I did get though, (and pardon my being harsh,) was a loud, obnoxious, and relatively stupid film, that is Armageddon. After seeing that, one may wonder, "Where does the **1/2 come from?" It comes from the (and this time, pardon my being cheesy) heart. Even though I am almost certain you have all ran screaming for the back button by now, I have an explanation. In Deep Impact, the emotion was almost impossible to relate to. All of the characters were so cheap and terrible. In Armageddon, people may say, "Oh, those are just 'wooden' performances", while I say, no, they were normal people, portraying normal people, not going for amazing acting, not even trying to act, the true gift of real actors. Most people will either think I am crazy, or simply refering to the Affleck/Tyler relationship. Nope. In fact I thought that was one of the most distracting storylines in the film, after all, it involved Bruce Willis chasing after the person he "loves like a son" with a shotgun scene. There was only 10 minutes focus on that story, and neither actor nor actress could pull it off believably. Sorry Liv and Ben. Anyway, I thought the Bruce Willis and Liv Tyler subplot was the best, because, they made an icredibly believeable family on their own, minus, the cornballish, "goodbye" scene at the end. Don't worry, I spoiled nothing, you can see it coming 150 minutes before it comes (Hmm...the film's running time. Coincidence? I shit you not.) Well, onto the big guns now. The action packed scenes are where the thumbs down comes in. Stupid and unrealistic, these may make you go deaf for the purpose of keeping you in the theatre. While a few of these sequences may actually be entertaing, some are completely oblivious to the fact, that they are making absolutely no sense, such as one on a refuelling station in space that serves for no purpose but to get the shit blown out of it. Steve Buscemi delivers the same old performance, that got a few laughs out of me, while Bruce Willis is always a cocky, ballzy, tough as nails character that we all want to see kick a comet's tail. Liv Tyler is hot (I mean come on, is there any other reason for her being here, aside from Mr. Big Lips himself, no not Mick Jagger, landing her a job on THE money maker of the summer?), and Ben Affleck lacks the charm he carried in Good Will Hunting (THE best film of all time) Another minus though I have to say before closing was stealing from former blockbusters, and from not so blockbusters, (almost lifting a few lines of dialogue directly out of Batman and Robin) Well, that's it. Aremageddon: 6.5/10, Deep Impact: 7/10. Looks like the firstborn is triumphant. If only that would be the case in the box office!
Angelo Muredda
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