Armageddon: A review of a bad movie

The man that saves the day,
the planet, the banks,
the everything...

I don't know why, but sometimes I get this internal need to watch a terrible movie. Last night I just crancked Armageddon into my player and enjoyed the high budget low thought plot of this 1998 hit.

This film grossed over $200 million and it was pretty successful, especially when compared to its competitor "Deep Impact", which was released around the same time and had a bit of a more complicated plot. Armageddon received mixed reviews, quite much as any summer blockbuster normally does, so there were no high expectations on thinking of this as a classic. The plot of the movie is that an asteroid "the size of Texas" is heading towards the Earth; seeking a solution to survive, NASA hires Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) and his crew, to fly to space and drill a hole in the asteroid and place a nuclear bomb to make it explode. The side plot has A.J. (Ben Affleck) having a romance with Harry's daughter Grace (gorgeous Liv Tyler), which obviously Harry opposes. So now, let's rip this one apart! Where do I start?

Like another box-office hit released a year before (Titanic with Celine Dion), Armageddon features heavy use of a single band in its soundtrack. I love Aerosmith, but man... it's so not cool to use Aerosmith's talents in this piece of junk! Let me refocus so I don't take it on the music so much. Let's move on to the script.

I'm telling you. "I don't want to miss a thing" could have been used for TITANIC the previous year
and it would have had the same success at the Oscars!

There are so many flaws and crazy situations in this movie, I can imagine the producers having a ball and laughing at us viewers as they come up with the scenes for the film. The majority of them involve Ben Affleck. Allow me to explain:

• Apparently, the President of the United States is an ignorant. One would hopefully think of him as a college graduate, with perhaps some sort of masters or PhD education, but that's not the case in Armageddon. He just cannot understand descriptions of physical dimensions of objects, like "Miles." So when addressing the president, it's better to simply tell him that the size of an asteroid is the same than just a random state. Imagine the dialog:

"What's the size of that asteroid?"
"Well it's the size of North Dakota Mr President.
"I don't quite follow, do you have another one?"
"Yes, it's the size of Wyoming"
"Ok cool!

• So life in our planet has a few days left (unless the crew succeeds), and while there are several training exercises the new astronauts have to focus on such short notice, but hey!... there is always time for AJ to play with animal crackers on my Grace's tummy. 

AJ and Grace really know what's important in life
The world is in danger, but hey ...animal cracker fun?

• By the way... what about quarantine? Aren't astronauts supposed to be on like 24-48 hours of quarantine prior flying out to space?

Yeah baby, we don't need quarantine, cause I miss you baby, and I don't want to miss a thing

• Right after AJ is fired, apparently it took him just a couple of days to get his game together and start his own company "AJ Oil Drilling", which already has a functioning drilling platform and even features an "AJ for President" ad. That must be the quickest start-up business in the history of the oil industry!

• The movie addresses well the advantages of being in a position of power in the business world. If you happen to be part of a team who is going to save a world, you can get a lot of stuff done for you: erase parking tickets, get the best suite of the Caesar's Palace, and not pay taxes!

• It's a wonderful idea to leave a completely untrained, unprepared american ignorant astronaut in charge of monitoring the pressure valves of the fueling system in the Space Shuttle. It's funny how cosmonaut Andropov refers to his uncle as "the genius" of the family. In his case, the apple fell far away from the tree.

• Not to far... this scene cracks me up every time: when the space station is about to blow, Harry asks "where is AJ", to which the Colonel answers "he's gone". Right then Harry says "I'm not leaving without AJ!!!" So what was his plan? To actually sit down in the space station and wait for AJ to come? To look for him? Was he willing to jeopardize the entire operation just to save AJ?

• General Kimsey (played by Keith David) is such a character that gets so much hate. He's supposed to be the jerk of the movie, always slowing down or being an ass to whichever situation he's involved. "The President's adviser says... (insert random comment here)."; or ..."The President just told me secondary protocol";... "The President just told me to pull my pants down and do the hoopa loopa!" What's even funnier is that Keith David redeems himself in Requiem for a dream, where his character is jaw dropping awesome cool. 

A force to be reckoned with: "I was't talking to YOU!"

• Another one from Kimsey as he tries to convince the President of... but hey, the President orders him to override the system. By the way, those secondary protocol dudes really came in fast from the elevators. Where they just holding the STOP button and waiting for the order so they could open the door?

• Wasted actors: the movie's budget is so high, one wonders if maybe it could have been lowered a bit ...and by a bit I mean A LOT. Man, so many charities out there to donate money. I'm particularly referring to the crew that fly in the Independence shuttle and especially Owen Wilson. I wonder how much money was he paid to be on this movie, because his character doesn't really do that much. I mean, he has lines but nothing he says is either relevant or helpful to the plot, well maybe with the exception of the "body hormones going in 1,000 different directions." I think there was another guy of Harry's crew who dies in that scene, but again he didn't do much. He was probably paid with Walmart coupons.

"Yeah man, hormons are flying in like 923924240 different directions! In this shuttle!"
How was THAT helpful to the plot?  Oh and he's bright but distracted.

• Oh by the way, when AJ finds Oscar's body, he has to yell just to make sure he is dead. 

• Grace (Liv Tyler) has nowhere else to go. This has to be crystal clear to everyone, especially for NASA's director of operations.

• Here's another Ben Affleck one (boy they really gave him a chance to go for it on this one). When AJ is driving the Armadillo/driller car on the asteroid, Andropov asks him "do you know what are you doing?" to which AJ replies "No! This button right there, I don't know what it does!" So wait a minute: aren't you driving the armadillo/drill car you're supposed to know how to work it? How come you don't know what those buttons do? And assuming the vehicle was made for astronauts, then why is he driving it then? Why not let Andropov drive it?

This thing is awesome. It has a loaded machine gun, it drill through asteroids...

• I can't seem to find a scene where this is explained, but why does the driller have a machine gun loaded on it? Well, maybe it was needed so that AJ could say his "that's how we do things from where I come from" line.

• Everytime AJ has a "hunch" something bad happens. It pays off the one time he was actually right, was the one that really mattered!

• and of course "What are you doing with a gun in space!?"

Let me remind you that this asteroid has no laws against me shooting you

Oh well, I had so much fun writing this I hope you had as much as I did. Next time you catch Armageddon, try to see if you can discover something else I overlooked.