Yar, you be here: Armageddon > Customer Reviews

Armageddon Customer Reviews (67 - 69 of 90 Reviews)

A Bruckheimer/Bay space dud
We all love sci-fi disaster movies. It's a guilty pleasure. I can tolerate disaster movies as long as there was effort involved to make it as entertaining as possible. This movie was watchable, but it was not an entertaining experience. "Armaggedon" is a movie that is bombastic, nonsensical, cliched, ridiculing, and is an insult to a moviegoer's intelligence. The Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay team is the worst Hollywood duo next to Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. Sure, "mindless fun" can have its moments, but "Armaggedon" pushes this way too much.

The summary in a heartbeat: An asteroid "the size of Texas" is on its way towards Earth, and the US government hires oil drillers to drill into the asteroid's center to nuke it internally. The writers seemed to reach for some undesired effect here. So what if the asteroid is the size of Texas? You don't need an asteroid that size to wipe out Earth. A city-sized asteroid is all it would take. Were the filmmakers paranoid that the movie will lose flavor if the asteroid were only the size of Seattle? And despite it's size, an asteroid does not have the same gravitional pull that the Earth or even the Moon does, yet the astronauts walk on the asteroid as if they're strolling through the city park.

"Armaggedon" plays like a montage on steroids. It just does not know how to enjoy the scenery. Camera angles shift and change so fast like an MTV-style music video, as if the filmmakers wanted to prevent you from taking a better look. It felt like the film was going to short-circuit on me. This is not stylish filmmaking, it's just a gimmick to toy with the audience. The disaster scenes are among the worst ever filmed. Closed-up shots so that the audience can't comprehend the mayhem is an insulting film gesture. On top of that, I thought I was going to get an epileptic seizure. Bruckheimer and Bay need a slap in the face.

The script is one that is completely dry of original ideas. The usual world in peril and average Americans have to save it. The usual sentimental farewell of the sacrificial hero. The usual love complications. The usual fumbling of high authorities. There's a scene in the movie where the nuke is turned on and the crew must disable it. What do you need for suspense? Duh, a timer! In reality, what purpose would timers have? If the nuke was successfully planted inside the asteroid, who would stay and watch the time run out? And of course for this scene to end with a bang, there must be an edge-of-your-seat moment where the so-called "bomb expert" has to decide whether to cut the red or blue wire.

This movie ridicules everybody, and it's not done in good taste. It ridicules NASA. It ridicules the President. It ridicules Russians. It ridicules average citizens. Everybody is a half-witted pawn for the plot's progression. The movie lovingly sets up human beings for doom as if they're too stupid to know what's coming. There's one scene where the two shuttles slingshot around the moon and must land on the asteroid. Do they anticipate debris as an obstacle? No. They fly right in here like idiots, and it's already predictable there's danger. It's one of a number of scenes were the filmmakers decided "Hey, let's insert a disaster here!"

What's with this love story phenomenon in disaster movies? This one serves no purpose for the plot. Liv Tyler is cast only for her to show off skin and serve as the angsty daughter of Bruce Willis (Harry). Ben Affleck (AJ) is Liv Tyler's love interest, and this little fiasco serves as the personal center for the three main characters. What for? At the end of the movie, Harry says to AJ, "I've always thought of you as a son." Right. At the beginning of the movie, he was chasing him around the oil rig trying to kill him with a shotgun.

"Armaggedon" is an ugly, frantic, burdening experience and is a movie that makes you wonder if the filmmakers even went through any edits in the screenplay. Another asteroid movie "Deep Impact", while not great, still wipes the floor with this one. Hopefully this movie will serve as an example of what NOT to do with making disaster films.

"Armageddon" is GREAT entertainment!
I recently saw "Armageddon" for the first time on DVD and thought it was a fantastic example of movie entertainment. It's an excellently-produced science fiction/action/adventure movie. The special effects are top-notch and truly breathtaking. Script and character development are above average for this type of film--but of course, this is NOT "Othello"! The storyline is extremely interesting and the movie's pacing is packed with edge-of-your-seat suspense, with just enough deadpan comedic relief. I found no fault with the actor's performances--Bruce Willis does his usually-good "John Wayne" and considering this is sci-fi, the others gave FAR less wooden performances than, say, would be seen on ANY episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." The movie could've done without the dumb Aerosmith tunes in the soundtrack, but that's a minor criticism.

Since I thoroughly enjoyed the film, I was dismayed to see a lot of negative comments by Amazon.com reviewers who appear (in my opinion) to be "cinema snobs." And after "reading between the lines" of these reviews, I see a pattern of thought--which I thoroughly disagree with.

The underlying "theme" of "Armageddon" is simply that for the most part, Americans--in addition to American values and technology--save the world. The attributes that Americans (although certainly not exclusively) are known for--courage, heroism, patriotism, both stubborn individuality AND one-for-all/all-for-one team determination--are very much a part of this story.

I wonder if many of the negative reviewers were put off by the "Rah-Rah USA!" tone of the film. There is a certain type of liberal/artsy, anti-American, anti-NASA, anti-patriot attitude that would loathe a movie like "Armageddon"--and such a mindset would probably color such a reviewer's comments. That's unfortunate, because although "Armageddon" is very much an "American" story, it also exhilaratingly examines some of the very BEST elements of the all-inclusive human spirit.

Armageddon is Great!
Although for the exception of PEARL HARBOR, Director MICHAEL BAY has shown improvment every film he directs, along with his sidekick producer- Jerry Bruckheimer.

BAY's third blockbuster film, ARMAGEDDON, is the adventure story of oil drillers recruited by NASA to stop an asteriod the size of Texas, from colliding with Earth. ARMAGEDDON brings all-star actors: BRUCE WILLIS (Die Hard Trilogy, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable), BEN AFFLECK (Pearl Harbor, Dogma, Reindeer Games), BILLY BOB THORTON (Pushing Tin, A Simple Plan), LIV TYLER (That Thing You Do, Inventing the Abbots), WILL PATTON (Gone in 60 Seconds) and STEVE BUSCEMI (Con Air, Billy Madison).

MY REVIEW:

"ARMAGEDDON is great! Why do so many people put this movie down? This movie is perfect in every aspect! The adventure, special effects, acting and story is phenomenal! This is one of my favorite movies! The BAY/BRUCKHEIMER team never fails in my book! This is far better than it's competitor- DEEP IMPACT! ARMAGEDDON is a great rush of excitment! It is also emotional, inspiring and humorous! See this movie immediately! It is spectacular!"- MJV & the Movies.

Previous Page

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Next Page