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#209 - Armageddon
Michael Bay, 1998
When a giant asteroid starts hurtling towards Earth, the military is forced to call in an crew of eccentric oil rig workers in order to drill through the asteroid so they can set off a bomb and destroy it.
If you had to pick one film to accurately sum up just what kind of filmmaker Michael Bay is, then you'd have to go with Armageddon. After directing a half-decent action-comedy debut with Bad Boys and a fairly good high-octane blockbuster with The Rock, he gave us...this. To be fair, the high concept of Armageddon alone does have a lot of potential to be a solid enough action film in the hands of another director. Unfortunately, this was the first of many films where Bay's tendency towards pyrotechnic self-indulgence reached a considerable high and makes the film hit a considerable low as a result.
While it's somewhat understandable that a film such as this one would prioritise spectacle above all else, the drop in quality when it comes to every other cinematic attribute is astonishing. There's the fact that the premise comes from the fact that NASA decides to train a ragtag crew of incredibly eccentric oil-rig workers to carry out the mission even though common sense would dictate that it would be easier to teach actual astronauts how to drill. They do this on the word of a legendary oil-rig worker (Bruce Willis), who is of course dealing with the fact that his daughter (Liv Tyler) is carrying on a forbidden romance with a gifted yet irresponsible surbordinate (Ben Affleck). The drama caused by this conflict is supposed to make for the emotional centre of the film, but it doesn't help that the Affleck-Tyler dynamic is especially cringe-inducing even for an incredibly ancillary romantic sub-plot, while the attempts to depict Willis as a sour-faced yet responsible leader are skewered by his introductory scene where he hits golf balls at Greenpeace protestors before chasing Affleck around an oil rig and firing a loaded shotgun at him in the process. Otherwise, the characters are a collection of stereotypes that range from the blandly serviceable to the insufficiently comedic.
If anything, the only genuine fun one can really get out of Armageddon is just being amused at the sheer implausibility of it all, not just at its premise but also due to the countless contrivances that keep the narrative moving along and widespread destruction happening for the flimsiest of reasons. Even in that regard, that doesn't stop the film from struggling to be entertaining during its excessive 150-minute running time. Even the sequences that are remotely justified by their contributions to the narrative feel especially drawn-out and unnecessary (there is no better example of this than the whole space station sequence about three-fifths of the way through the movie). I know that people will joke about how this managed to be released as part of the Criterion Collection, but in a way it makes perfect sense given its dedication to preserving important films - if ever you needed a stellar example of a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster that sacrifices just about everything in the way of logic, common sense, characterisation and brevity for the sake of creating an apparently entertaining series of flashy action sequences, look no further.
Michael Bay, 1998
When a giant asteroid starts hurtling towards Earth, the military is forced to call in an crew of eccentric oil rig workers in order to drill through the asteroid so they can set off a bomb and destroy it.
If you had to pick one film to accurately sum up just what kind of filmmaker Michael Bay is, then you'd have to go with Armageddon. After directing a half-decent action-comedy debut with Bad Boys and a fairly good high-octane blockbuster with The Rock, he gave us...this. To be fair, the high concept of Armageddon alone does have a lot of potential to be a solid enough action film in the hands of another director. Unfortunately, this was the first of many films where Bay's tendency towards pyrotechnic self-indulgence reached a considerable high and makes the film hit a considerable low as a result.
While it's somewhat understandable that a film such as this one would prioritise spectacle above all else, the drop in quality when it comes to every other cinematic attribute is astonishing. There's the fact that the premise comes from the fact that NASA decides to train a ragtag crew of incredibly eccentric oil-rig workers to carry out the mission even though common sense would dictate that it would be easier to teach actual astronauts how to drill. They do this on the word of a legendary oil-rig worker (Bruce Willis), who is of course dealing with the fact that his daughter (Liv Tyler) is carrying on a forbidden romance with a gifted yet irresponsible surbordinate (Ben Affleck). The drama caused by this conflict is supposed to make for the emotional centre of the film, but it doesn't help that the Affleck-Tyler dynamic is especially cringe-inducing even for an incredibly ancillary romantic sub-plot, while the attempts to depict Willis as a sour-faced yet responsible leader are skewered by his introductory scene where he hits golf balls at Greenpeace protestors before chasing Affleck around an oil rig and firing a loaded shotgun at him in the process. Otherwise, the characters are a collection of stereotypes that range from the blandly serviceable to the insufficiently comedic.
If anything, the only genuine fun one can really get out of Armageddon is just being amused at the sheer implausibility of it all, not just at its premise but also due to the countless contrivances that keep the narrative moving along and widespread destruction happening for the flimsiest of reasons. Even in that regard, that doesn't stop the film from struggling to be entertaining during its excessive 150-minute running time. Even the sequences that are remotely justified by their contributions to the narrative feel especially drawn-out and unnecessary (there is no better example of this than the whole space station sequence about three-fifths of the way through the movie). I know that people will joke about how this managed to be released as part of the Criterion Collection, but in a way it makes perfect sense given its dedication to preserving important films - if ever you needed a stellar example of a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster that sacrifices just about everything in the way of logic, common sense, characterisation and brevity for the sake of creating an apparently entertaining series of flashy action sequences, look no further.