Armageddon Review

by "David Wilcock" (david DOT wilcock AT btinternet DOT com)
August 24th, 1998

ARMAGEDDON
A review by David Wilcock (C)1998

(TOUCHSTONE PICTURES)
RUNNING TIME: 2 HOURS 24 MINUTES.
STARRING BRUCE WILLIS, BILLY BOB THORNTON, LIV TYLER AND BEN AFFLECK. DIRECTED BY MICHAEL BAY.

The second meteorite movie after the dire Deep Impact (1998) is brought by the team who produced the dire action movie The Rock (1996). Luckily, however, Armageddon is better than both of these films, and provides entertaining summer fare. The 'plot' is that an asteroid is about to hit Earth, and a group of normal people (Bruce Willis being the ringleader) are sent into space to nuke the asteroid from the inside, bouncing it off course. Naturally, there's lot of death, destruction, and impressive special effects along the way.
Jerry Bruckheimer has produced another big action movie, but this one tries to be a little different by trying to develop the characters a bit more. Unfortunately, it spends too long trying to develop decidedly dull characters, and the audience starts to long for the action sequences. Amongst the characters, NASA guy Dan Truman (Thornton) Bruce Willis, and a whacked out Steve Buscemi provide any interest, while the rest of the characters are boring, 2-D stereotypes, the kind of characters Bruckheimers films specialize in. The script dosen't fare much better, with the usual boring statements, although Buscemi does deliver the odd funny line. Liv Tylers and Ben Afflecks love scenes, however, are so terribly messed up they shouldn't have been included at all. The lines they say are banal, and out of place in this movie.

When the film does finally gets to business with the action, it's directed well, with some tense sequences and some great action. The destruction on Earth looks much better than Deep Impact's, and the outer space sequences are great also. All of this will be lost on home video, of course, so try to see this film in the movie theatre. The special effects are truly special, and none of it looks too cheesy (like parts of Godzilla)

Armageddon, although suffering from a few flaws, is entertaining, and most of the time has the right balance of drama, action and comedy. Although the movie could be a bit shorter, and perhaps a bit more effort (rather than time) spent on developing the characters, this could of been a better movie. Generally, however, Armageddon is good summer entertainment, and certainly worth seeing.

OVERALL RATING=*** OUT OF *****

REVIEW BY DAVID WILCOCK ©1998

DAVID WILCOCK
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