07/15/09 - Armageddon

Armageddon (1998, 150 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/

One of the biggest, cheesiest, corniest, lamest, over-the-top action movies ever: Armageddon. And yet I find it almost impossible to dislike. I actually enjoy watching it - for the most part. For some reason, I'd really wanted to watch this film for a while so I decided I might as well view it and get that craving out of my system.

A huge asteroid - one the size of Texas - is coming towards Earth. It's known as a Global Killer. NASA assembles a team of oil drillers to go up and detonate a nuclear bomb 800 feat under the surface of the asteroid so as it to make it explode into pieces that will miss Earth. The crew of these drillers is: Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis), A.J. Frost (Ben Affleck), Chick (Will Patton), Rockhound (Steve Buscemi), Oscar (Owen Wilson), Bear (Michael Clarke Duncan) and others. Head of the mission at NASA is Dan Truman played by Billy Bob Thornton. Liv Tyler plays the love interest of A.J. who also happens to be the daughter of Harry. Peter Stormare also plays a Russian cosmonaut named Lev Andropov the group meets up with.

First off, the movie is 150 minutes and essentially splits up like so: 60 minutes getting ready for the flight and setting the scene, 30 minutes flying to the asteroid, 60 minutes on the asteroid and conclusion. For a film of this sort, one might think the best part is the final 90 minutes but what I actually love so much about Armageddon is that the first 60 minutes make you absolutely love every one of these oil guys. Each has their own personality and every single one is likable. Once we hit the last 90 minutes we get into situations where everything that can go wrong does. The Russian space station has a leak, one shuttle crashes, they miss the landing, they break drill bits, the president wants to remote detonate the nuke before it's planted, etc. etc. etc. It's really too much. Even the final scene, a wind current or something sweeps Harry off his feet and he almost doesn't detonate the nuke in time. And by this point you're just really sick of every possible thing going wrong.

However, there are shining moments. Most of them rest in the characters themselves. Steve Buscemi as Rockhound, in my opinion, steals the movie. He plays the "incredibly smart guy that's weird" to perfection in so many movies (also see Con Air). Other characters such as Bear and Chick are also pretty cool, but just naturally pale in comparison to Buscemi's Rockhound. The only character that comes close is Peter Stormare's Andropov who's stereotypical Russian cosmonaut delivers some fun lines with incredible seriousness. Harry is also a great character and being the "always do the right thing" type, you find it really hard to dislike him.

Overall, I gave this film a 6/10. The movie's enjoyable for 150 minutes but incredibly enjoyable for the first 70 or so. After that, it slowly starts going downhill but there's still enough excitement to make the film a fun experience. Trying to find all the factual errors and mistakes is also fun, and can still be done without taking all the action and thrill out of the movie. Somehow this over-the-top, cheesy, lame movie just works and can stand the test of time. I find it to be in select company in this regard.