ARMAGEDDON
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
Check your brains at the door. It's time for some silly summer fun
in ARMAGEDDON as Bruce Willis and Co. kick some asteroid tail. When a
big rock last headed for our planet in DEEP IMPACT, it was soap opera
time. That was back in the serious days of May. It's summer now when
even flying boulders the size of Texas can be seen only as a lark.
The story starts 65 million years ago when a piece of space trash
runs into Earth and kills all the dinosaurs. "It happened before," a
deep-voiced Moses, a.k.a. Charlton Heston, warns us in the narration.
"It will happen again. It's just a matter of time."
Cut to present day New York City, where the poor Chrysler building,
which has been wiped out recently in other movies, takes it on the chin
again as an early casualty of an errant asteroid. Actually this one is
just a baby, his big mama is on the way. The world's governments will
keep this fact a secret as the U.S. quickly trains a team of social
misfits from a deep ocean oil drilling rig as mankind's only hope of
salvation. Think STARSHIP TROOPERS, but more ridiculous. In
ARMAGEDDON's defense, it at least realizes it is a parody, something
that many recent films haven't been smart enough to figure out.
(The movie will win many viewers' hearts early on with the scene of
a small dog attacking a street display of Godzilla toys. Given that
many are bigger than him, it is a nice metaphor that size doesn't
matter.)
ARMAGEDDON delights in being politically incorrect. When we first
see driller Harry S. Stamper (Bruce Willis), he is shooting golf balls
from the deck of his rig, trying to hit Greenpeace protestors in the
head.
His right-hand man, A.J. Frost (Ben Affleck), is in trouble with
Harry for falling in love with Harry's daughter, Grace, played as a
cipher by Liv Tyler. Grace doesn't show her father much respect. "I
understand that you are handicapped by natural immaturity, but I forgive
you," she tells him.
Although there are many contenders for the movie's most ridiculous
part, A.J.'s lovemaking scene with Grace has to be the winner. He uses
animal crackers as a form of foreplay, something even NINE AND 1/2 WEEKS
never tried.
The best performance is turned in, as usual, by Billy Bob Thornton,
who plays against type as the brainy head of NASA, Dan Truman. Dan is a
guy with a good-ole-boy accent and a leg brace that kept him from ever
becoming an astronaut himself. He also gets some of the best lines as
when he describes the events of the upcoming asteroid apocalypse as
"basically all the worst parts of the bible."
A disheveled Steve Buscemi as Rockhound, plays a double major from
MIT, who spends his time worrying that the law will catch up with him
for sleeping with underage girls. Rockhound is on Stamper's team as are
a bunch of other oddballs.
Truman chooses Stamper's team to go up in space with the astronauts
to drill into the asteroid and plant an atomic bomb. "The fate of the
planet is in the hands of a bunch of retards," General Kimsey (Keith
David) complains. "I wouldn't trust them with a potato gun."
The rag-tag outfit lives up to their image when they place their
demands on the United States government. In order to agree to undertake
the mission, their demands include: sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom all
summer, bringing back eight-track tapes and revealing who shot Kennedy.
The one universal demand is that they never want to pay taxes ever
again. Now, that's a request worth fighting for.
When they finally get to the asteroid, the movie appears to have
run out of money. The special effects are anything but, and the scene
is dark and murky.
If you can only see one asteroid movie this year, DEEP IMPACT, with
all of its faults, is probably the better choice. But if you're looking
for laughs and have plenty of time to kill, ARMAGEDDON is just about as
good.
ARMAGEDDON runs 2:24. It is rated PG-13 for sci-fi disaster
action, sensuality and brief profanity and would be fine for kids around
10 and up.
Have I seen this movie: Yes
And what did I think:
Armageddon came out about 2 months after
Deep Impact, the other summer big rock from outer space movie.
This movie did a better job in story telling, but was a little bit
more far-fetched then Deep Impact. The idea of a bunch of oil
drillers going into outer space to stop the giant rock, hardly
seems plausible. But if you put that aside, you have a real fun
movie to watch. Bruce Willis, Ben Afleck & Liv Tyler give great
performances, and have a nice supporting cast with standout roles
by Billy Bob Thornton and Steve Buscemi. Throughout the movie, you
really got to know and feel for these characters, whose shoulders
rest the fate of the world. The fate of Harry Stamper was very
moving especially between the scene of his daughter Grace saying
goodbye to him. In addition to the great acting, Armageddon has
some great special effects too, better then Deep Impact. It added
to a great summer of '98 blockbusters and is definately worth
watching if you haven't seen it before.
I give Armageddon 4 out of 5 stars.
Review written June 8, 1999
