Armegeddon
Armegeddon
Director:Michael Bay
Screenplay:Jonathan Hensleigh
Starring:Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler,
Billy Bob Thornton, Steve Buscemi
John's Review
Much like previous disaster
films, Armegeddon attempts to assault your sense with a
non-stop pump of adrenaline. While this may work in such films as
say, Towering Inferno and The Poseidan Adventure,
it doesn't work in this one. This summer has been so lacklust in
it's blockbuster performers that I think everyone was
hoping maybe Armegeddon was going to step forward and take
the responsibilty.
The movie opens with meteors hitting famous landmarks (see Deep
Impact), from there we move to NASA where they couldn't spot
this meteor sooner because the budget only allows us to finance
looking at 3% of the sky (this is actually a correct reference).
Now let's cut to Harry Stamper(Willis) who owns his own off
shore drilling well and is the 'Best Driller in the World.' I'm
not sure how one comes about having this distinction, is it like
the Academy of Arts and Sciences where everyone of their peers
votes? Anyway, he and his crew gets selected to fly up to the
meteor, drill a hole and plant a nuclear device (see Deep
Impact).
Now the crew has to train and learn in 12 days what it normally
takes intelligent human beings several years to master. So the
training is done and now the world knows what's about to happen.
Big heroes send off. Yay. Now this is where the film goes from
mediocre to flat out terrible.
First.. Shuttle must mate with MIR and refuel. MIR blows up, next
shuttle must slingshot around moon and enter meteor from rear,
less debris that way. Only scientists are wrong and there is a
boat load of debris (figuratively speaking). One shuttle (almost)
blows up, second shuttle lands waaayyyy off course. Next, drill
bit breaks, transmission fries, next drill bit breaks, astronaut
goes beserk and wants to blow up meteor from the outside (won't
work), 3 remaining survivors make disaster filled trip from
destroyed shuttle to good shuttle. Remaining transmission blows,
get new one from 3 guys. Now finish drilling, meteor shower on a
meteor, destroys some equipment, can't fire nuke remotely, guess
who stays behind to set it off. World saved.
Now by the time you finish reading the previous paragraph you
were probably thinking to yourself will this narrative just STOP!
That is exactly what I was thinking 2 hours into this film. 45
minutes later it finally ended.... Oh man what a relief, not that
the world was saved, but that the film was over.
Michael Bay's direction was lackluster, the writing was downright
terrible, the acting was on par with a film of this type (no
qualms there), the music was ok (except did we have to have 4
different songs by Aerosmith?) I don't recommend this film to
anyone, even those going for the typical mindless, over bearing,
meaningless summer drivel.
Grade: D
