Armageddon

Starring: Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck

Review by The Ranting WolfCastle

    I'm pretty much fed up with the whole "natural disaster" wave of movies that has plagued Hollywood the last couple of years.   "Twister" started it all, then there were films like "Volcano" and it's alter ego.  (I can't remember what it was called.)  So last summer when the asteroid theme came about, I was disappointed to say the least.  I didn't see "Deep Impact" but I heard it played way too much on the religious aspect of the end of the world.  "Armageddon" surprised me.

    There's an asteroid the size of Texas hurling toward the earth, it's impact would mean the end of all life.  NASA comes up with a plan to drill into the asteroid and nuke it from the inside.  So Bruce Willis and his oil drilling crew are called in.  They decide to send his team up instead of training the astronauts to drill.

    First of all I'd just like to say, Yeah right.  No way NASA is going to send up a bunch of drilling guys who have no training instead of real astronauts.   But I guess it is the end of the world, so what the hell?  Also this is an action movie and not many of those are very realistic, so I'll just shut up about it.

    I liked the first half of this movie, where the oil drillers are being trained to go to space.  I thought it was funny, an aspect that most other disaster flicks have failed to touch on, and entertaining.  They developed all the characters well, showing that they all had normal problems, and were just like you and I.   I think that part was perfect.

    Then they actually go into space.  The mission has started.   Of course everything they do in space almost ends up in failure.  After a brief stint blowing up the Russian space station, they head for the asteroid.   Needless to say, they screw up the landing, and have to make up for their errors.   I think a half an hour could easily be cut out of this movie, without losing any of it's emotional appeal, or edge of your seat action.  Some of the disasters on the asteroid just take too long.  You end up noticing how long each action sequence is, not because you're terrified, but because you're becoming irritated.  I know that action movies need to have action, I'm just saying that more is not always better.   Two and a half hours is simply too long to carry an action film.  Every single ounce of good action entertainment could still be maintained by cutting the scenes of which I speak down by a couple of minutes.

    Aside from that misfortunate happening, the emotional appeal of the film is extraordinary.  I've never seen an action movie where you care so much about the characters.  Everyone in this film is a good actor, and they act good in this movie.  (I know that was a terrible sentence, I'm just trying to keep you on your toes.)  There is one thing about every action/adventure/natural disaster movie, that I don't like, and that's that the protagonists are always so much smarter than the antagonists.  The "bad" characters always make decisions that go against average people's common sense.  And the "good" characters always know exactly what the right decision is, but the bad guys never listen do they?  Hell no.   That's just a little pet peeve I have.

    This is by far the best natural disaster movies out there.  And I can honestly say that (having not seen too many others) because I am a stubborn prick, that never changes his mind.  So there.

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