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Armageddon -- Criterion Collection

Armageddon -- Criterion Collection

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Winner of the Most Unrealistic Film Ever Made!
Review: Warning: Do not watch this movie if you are scientificly inclined. Do not watch this movie if you cannot suspend your disbelief at an asteroid the size of Texas being "diverted" from its course when it's less than 20,000 miles from earth (it's a gravitational impossiblility people!). Ok...so it's a fun romp. But don't expect it to inspire your children to become astronauts. More likely they will want to be oil rig workers. Good pay in that.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Old fasion Western
Review: This is like the old fasion westerns, where the posse rode out to kill the bad guys. In this case the bad guy is a comet, ready to destroy earth. The special effects of asteroids hitting New York, China, and Paris, are spectacular. The movis is filled with drama, suspense, and comedy. It is also filled with trite dialoge from the cast, but somehow this comes off, and Bruce Willis does a great job being the unlikly hero who saves earth.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A Bruckheimer/Bay space dud
Review: 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 "Armageddon" 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.

"Armageddon" 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 are 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 with a shotgun.

The movie is littered with other kinds of nonsense. The nuke is about blow in less than a minute, but Harry takes his time to talk about his determination. The asteroid is about to hit the zero barrier mark, but Harry takes his time to say a final goodbye to his daughter. The world is about to end, for crying out loud. Giving lengthy banal eulogies seems more important to the director.

"Armageddon" 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.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Exceptionally well-crafted story line
Review: For me, this is an incredibly difficult movie to review and critique. I feel that the movie did a phenomenal job of developing the story; however, the acting in the movie left something to be desired.

In case someone has not seen the movie, I do not want to give much of the story away. An asteroid, classified as a global killer (a global killer meaning that if it impacts earth, there will be total destruction of life), is on a collision course with earth. NASA comes up with the idea of landing on the asteroid, drilling a hole, and dropping a nuclear weapon in the hole and blowing up the asteroid with the intent of splitting it in two and altering its path so it misses earth.

While it is a simple story, the movie does an exceptional job developing the plot into a 2-hour movie. The movie incorporates a "gloom and doom" plot with a second story of love, romance, and hope. The first plot is about an oil driller and his band of misfits attempting to work with a group of highly educated astronauts and military pilots to drill a hole on the asteroid (and of course the work together as well as Worcestershire sauce and ice cream). The second story line involves one of the oil drillers falling in love with the owners daughter. The relationship reminds me of a terrible "teen-age" relationship with the seemingly perfect love that young people share coupled with a resentful father who seems to not want to lose his daughter.

It is difficult to explain how well the two story lines integrate without ruining the movie for someone who has not seen it. While the plot is superb, the acting in the move is just so-so. I thought the acting of the three headline actors (Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, and Liv Tyler) was weak at best; they had their great moments, but mostly their acting seemed almost emotionless. I did think a couple of the lesser known actors (mainly Michael Clarke Duncan as "Bear" and Peter Stormare as the Russian astronaut) were incredible in this movie.

Personally, due to the overwhelming depressing plot about the end of the earth, I don't think this is a movie I would cuddle with on the couch with a new date. However, I nonetheless think the plot is excellent and I do highly recommend seeing this movie. I give the movie 5 stars for how the movie integrates the two story lines together and develops them into a great plot, not the acting in the movie.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: I want to like this movie, I really do.
Review: I just can't. Okay, I am punished for having an engineering degree, and therefore being actuely aware of how ridiculous the science was and, more importantly, how NEEDLESSLY ridiculous the science was. So many of the things that just blasted my suspension of disbelief were throwaway lines of dialogue that could just have easily been written so that they weren't horribly wrong, e.g. the "13g turn" around the moon, which would have reduced our heroes to chunky salsa, could just have easily been a survivable 8. I know to some it seems like nit-picking, but I hate any movie that punishes me for having a brain.

But let's set that aside. This movie is very Michael Bay, in that it is a loud, frequently, and very visually intense. This one, though, is TOO loud. It is just dominated by the sound effects, and a lot of stuff just needlessly blows up or is shattered. The film audially, and ultimately, visually is just so far over the top that it is difficult to enjoy without watching some slightly less large and ridiculous movie before it.

Okay, so we turn to acting. Here Bruce Willis continues to confirm my belief that his choice of movies will cause him to be forever underrated as an actor. He gives a fine, if slightly stiff perforance to lead this movie. A decent Ben Affleck bats second in the order, and from there it is a series of ridiculous cardboard cutout characteristics trying to be characters. Granted, for a summer popcorn-cruncher, you aren't looking for Shakespeare, but that still doesn't alter the fact that there is not much there. As a result the movie tries overpowered it's fault with frequent, large explosions, tragedies, destruction, etc. etc.

This movie has actually caused me, in normal conversation, to pull the mind-bending linguistic feat of referring to "Independence Day" as "restrained" in a sincere fashion, which should tell a potential viewer a lot. I can't completely hate this movie, because there is some quality here, and I know "The Core" exists, so I have to be able to rate something lower than this. If you have a true home theater, I can see how this thunderous film can be fun, but on any regular tv, this one is a snoozer.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THIS MOVIE ROCKS!!!! WAY BETTER THEN DEEP IMPACT
Review: I cannot believe all the negative feedback ARMEGEDDON has recieved. Why, it is one of the most greatest action films ever made, and it is brought to us by action director Michael Bay (He is my favorite movie director). I have liked this movie even before I knew he directed it. I rememeber seeing this in theaters when I was ten years old back in 1998, and it put me on the edge of my seat. It had such great special effects, alot of intense action scenes, some great comedical moments, and even some very emotionl parts at the end of the of the film. Yes, I know it was a very long movie, but the movie will make such an impact on you that you'll never notice. It is ALOT better then that other sappy disaster movie, DEEP IMPACT. DEEP IMPACT was more of an emotional movie while ARMAGEDDON is more of an action thrill ride. Although most people prefer DEEP IMPACT, I would rather would watch this. Here is the plot.
When a space shuttle and half of New York city is unexpectantly destroyed by a meteor shower, NASA tracks down another cosmical object heading toward for us. The difference, is that this one is enormous, it the size of Texas. And to make matters worse, we only have 18 days to destroy it-BEFORE IT DESTROYS US! Now, the only was to demolishing it is by planting a nuclear weapon 800 feat below it surface. In order to do that, NASA must get the Worlds best deep core driller. That guy is Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) and his crew AJ (Ben Affleck), "Chick" Chappelle (Will Patton), Bear (Michael Clarke Duncan), Max (Kan Campbell), Oscar (Owen Wilson), Freddy Noonan (Clark Bolly), and Rockhound (Steve Buscemi). These have 12 days to train how to become astronauts. All the time in the world is all they've got.
In my opinin, I think this is the best movie directed by Michael Bay. Its has all sorts of great elements- Action, comedy, and drama. Sure the plot is a little obscure, our fate is in the hands of a bunch of oil drillers? I know it sounds dumb, but it does make a great pop corn flick. What was also good about this movie was the relation ship between AJ and Harry's daughter Grace (Liv Tyler). Besides the asteroid, the movie was also centered around that relationship. AJ and Grace love each other however Harry does not like AJ. Loving Grace was sort of the real reason why AJ was saving the World. He is doing for her. And slowly throughout the movie, AJ was earning Harry's respect.
Now let me talk about this DVD. I suggest getting the regular edition DVD, not the criterion collection. I remeber paying alot of money for the criterion collection, and while the movie is fantastic, the dvd lacks even though is is a 2 disc set. Every piece of veiwing material on the 2nd disc is only ten minutes. I can probobly watch everything on the second disc in less then 45 min. It surely was not worth the 30 plus dollars, I suggest getting the regular single disc edition. It won't have as much x-tras, but it will be a better buy.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I'm Aerosmith now
Review: I want to close my eyes, I really want to fall asleep cause this movie blows and I think that it really stinks. Even when I turn it off, the bad acting will never stop and I think it sucks and the acting is really sad. "Boo-hoo my daddy died to save the world," shut up Liv Tyler, no one will miss Bruce Willis.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: one of the best sci-fi in life time
Review: I can understand how people complaint a lot about this very unscientific Sci-fi. I've managed to accept it at my first visit in theater. Mostly because they did it all the way to end like telling u right in the face "this is how we wanna play it". The diagnoue r very cartoony that actually help a lot to digest the whole picture, since the whole show is like a big cartoon. And I like cartoon and animation so I dun find myself having problem to accept it. Once u beyond that point, the whole show is really joyful, MTV grabage my ass, it rocks and thrill and its all that matter. The only thing that distingulish good movies from bads is, it doesnt matter which way they plot and design the show, the question is just "how much" can they pull off from the emotion they are trying to deliver originally, this movie is about rocking fun with space as its background and they do hit it right for me. Just sit back and enjoy 2 hrs cinimatic fun.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Beowulf retold for the 21st Century
Review: Armageddon is the kind of film which Hollywood does best: It's fun and flashy and at the end of the film you will shed a tear and cheer! For the English majors in the house, Bruce Willis is a Beowulfian booze guzzling character who leads his merry band of booze guzzling warriors against the demon from hell (a planet destroying asteroid. The sets on the asteroid are top notch and convey a sense of evil. The acting is better than average for this kind of genre, the editing crisp and well-paced, and the production is on the whole very slick. If you love Hollywood, and all that that implies, you will love this film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hollywood cinema at it's best...
Review: I love this film. Some of my friends and colleagues (quite a few in fact) believe this movie to be one of the corniest and sappiest movies ever made, I say to you all, stop, chill out and see this movie for what it is, Hollywood cinema at it's patriotic, rip roaring roller coaster best. Nerds, if it bothers you that any film seems 'filled with factual errors and flaws' and you crave scientific fact, this is probably not the movie for you, go watch the Discovery channel instead. For those that want to immerse themselves in an action / adventure movie second to none, crank up your home theatre system and let Bruce, Billy Bob, Ben, Liv and the living legend that is Steve Buscemi take you on an action packed journey to save the earth. The special effects are excellent and there is a second disc with some good commentary from the cast, producer and NASA consultants brought in to help on the project. All in all Critereon have managed to make an excellent film even better. A must for your collection.


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