3 of 10
Cinematography by John Schwartzman
Bruce Willis
Billy Bob Thornton
Ben Affleck
Liv Tyler
Will Patton
Steve Buscemi
Owen Wilson
Michael Clarke Duncan
Peter Stormare
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||
| Armageddon 3 of 10 |
||||||
| Directed by Michael Bay Cinematography by John Schwartzman Bruce Willis Billy Bob Thornton Ben Affleck Liv Tyler Will Patton Steve Buscemi Owen Wilson Michael Clarke Duncan Peter Stormare |
||||||
| This is another of the famous Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer productions. And it has all the same strengths and weaknesses common to their previous productions. The primary problem, at least in my mind, is that they all seem to be a little too funny. They keep throwing in humorous lines, a la Indiana Jones, often at extremely inappropriate moments. This does real damage to nearly every emotional scene in the film. Only one or two of the �weepy� scenes have any impact because there is always someone throwing in some stupid wisecrack. (The scenes between Will Patton and his kid were awesome, though. Bay must have done those by accident; he probably meant to cut them out, but forgot.) The production value is high and glitzy. DP Schwatrzman seems to be afflicted with that most dreaded of Hollywood germs: Bay-Bruckheimer SloMo Syndrome. The result is truly terrifying; only about half the film seems to be shot in real time. Unfortunate, since Schwartzman�s work on Benny and Joon resulted in one of the most simply beautiful films I have ever seen. The cast is very poor, nearly all around. Willis is a throw-away, Affleck is intolerable, Wilson plays his usual character, and Buschemi is wasted, as is Michael Clarke Duncan. Billy Bob was probably the most interesting character overall, and Will Patton is not without his moment, as mentioned above. (I'd like to mention Stormare, who is one of my very favorite bit actors. Great job from him.) Lastly, I found myself wondering if Liv Tyler was only in this film so Bruckheimer could get Steve Tyler's Aerosmith to sing a song for him on the cheap. Both the song and Live are a serious mistake here. Ugh. All in all, overblown, typical Hollywood junk, which is Bruckheimer�s specialty. | ||||||