Armageddon (1998)
Directed by Michael Bay
When an asteroid threatens to collide with Earth, NASA honcho Dan Truman determines the only way to stop it is to drill into its surface and detonate a nuclear bomb. This leads him to renowned driller Harry Stamper, who agrees to helm the dangerous space mission provided he can bring along his own hotshot crew. Among them is the cocksure A.J. who Harry thinks isn't good enough for his daughter, until the mission proves otherwise.
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18 films that influenced Armageddon
What critics say influenced Armageddon
The film pays homage to the 1967 film The Dirty Dozen where a band of criminals redeem themselves on a dangerous World War II mission.
Basically this is The Dirty Dozen meets When Worlds Collide: a grubby team of oil drillers headed by Willis is dispatched to save the planet by nuking the asteroid from within.
“The Right Stuff” meets “The Dirty Dozen” in a frenzy of special effects and ear-shattering detonations.
Like "The Dirty Dozen," these so-called "retards" and "criminals" cover all bases of the reluctant cinematic hero: there's decent right-hand man Chick (Will Patton), hot-dogger A.J. (Ben Affleck), space cowboy Oscar (Owen Wilson), horny genius Rockhound (Steve Buscemi), Max the fat one (Ken Campbell), Bear the African American one (Michael Clarke Duncan) and Freddy the expendable one (Clark Brolly).
I hate Armageddon for what it is: the unholy spawn of The Dirty Dozen and Con Air .
Although he freely borrows from other filmmakers with many of his shots (was the slow motion shuttle march from The Right Stuff really necessary?), he puts them together in a way that’s exhilarating.
While the plot line is predictable (think “Dirty Dozen” crossed with “The Right Stuff”) and concocted almost by recipe (take one tough but lovable hero — Bruce Willis in his “Die Hard” mode — and add in a lovably diverse group of misfits, then wisecracks to taste and just a touch of sentiment and a dash of young love for seasoning), the 10-14 year olds in your household (and the 10-14 year old in many of us) will find that it delivers as a summer explosion movie.
“The Right Stuff” meets “The Dirty Dozen” in a frenzy of special effects and ear-shattering detonations.
The President of the United States gives an incredibly over-the-top speech (as in Independence Day), there are long, lingering, slow motion shots of Harry's team approaching the space craft (as in The Right Stuff), and there's a sequence near the end that might have been touching if it wasn't so overdone.
The runaround in the exploding Russian space station is a nail-biter, and Affleck�s attempt to rekindle the glory days of Smokey and the Bandit when faced with a seemingly-impassable canyon is like a comic-book brought to life (and that is by no means a disparaging remark � �sense of wonder� is an overused term, but in this instance it evokes exactly that, as do most of the other set-pieces).
More specifically, a Michael Bay-Jerry Bruckheimer production, Bruckheimer being the mastermind, with his late partner Don Simpson, of such thumping paeans to male aggression and bonding as "Top Gun" and "Days of Thunder."
Count on lethal asteroids to replace UFOs in the Zeitgeist Watch; actor Steve Buscemi's asking price to triple; and producer Jerry Bruckheimer to end up back where he was in the era of Top Gun (1986), before his dead partner, Don Simpson, blew the duo's credibility on cocaine, cars, and call girls.
So is Armageddon really The Thrill Ride of the Summer, a 10+, Bruce Willis 's Best Action Movie Since Die Hard, and the Star Wars/Top Gun/Towering Inferno of the '90s?
Party hearty before the big blowup: That's the motto of "Armageddon," the latest action extravaganza from producer Jerry Bruckheimer ("Top Gun," "The Rock," "Con Air").
The co-creator of "The Rock," "Top Gun" and "Con Air" never met an explosion he didn't like, so there's a new catastrophe every 20 minutes or so.
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Mankind's saviors are a dirty dozen or so cartoonish oil-rig roughnecks headed by Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis, looking unnervingly like Frank Sinatra in Von Ryan's Express) enlisted by NASA head Dan Truman (a bemused Billy Bob Thornton) to fly a pair of space shuttles to the celestial intruder and nuke it.
Watching Armageddon, I realized how easy it had been to accept the relatively documentary-like realism of the imagery of Space Cowboys and Deep Impact — either of which, compared to Armageddon, looks like (really looks like, I mean) Apollo 13 or 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The notion that an asteroid is essentially a silent killer (until it's too late) is sacrilege here, so there's no opportunity for the creepy, silent space deaths so effectively dramatized in "2001: A Space Odyssey."
Watching Armageddon, I realized how easy it had been to accept the relatively documentary-like realism of the imagery of Space Cowboys and Deep Impact — either of which, compared to Armageddon, looks like (really looks like, I mean) Apollo 13 or 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Meanwhile, Billy Bob Thornton is forgettable as the NASA honcho (compare his work here to Ed Harris' superior portrayal of the same sort of individual in Apollo 13), Liv Tyler is on hand exclusively to look pretty (a requirement that doesn't tax her limited acting ability), and Steve Buscemi (re-united with Fargo co-star Peter Stormare) plays the kind of wacko that he does so well.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
In fact, I can only remember two jokes that actually work: a none-too-subtle jab at Godzilla and an equally obvious reference to Dr. Strangelove.
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Recalling the amazing box-office assault of 1996's Independence Day, which was also released over the July 4 weekend, Touchstone Pictures is understandably optimistic about the performance of their big summer gun, the latest from Midas producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Crimson Tide, Con Air).
Maybe I should have said that Armageddon is a $160-Million Frat Boy Movie and the Most Patriotic Hollywood Picture Since Independence Day.
Independence Day, 1996, Roland Emmerich, from which the melodrama of Armageddon was lifted.
“ID4” is barely worth seeing; it doesn’t have the sense of wonder of a Spielberg (“Close Encounter of the 3rd Kind”), nor the thrills of a Cameron (“Terminator 2”), or even the mere technical efficiency of a Bay (“Armageddon”).
(His whole team, in fact, seems recycled from that film, which in turn was recycled from World War II G.I. epics like The Fighting Seabees.)