Armageddon (1998)

Director: Michael Bay

Starring: Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck

After discovering that an asteroid the size of Texas is going to impact Earth in less than a month, NASA recruits a misfit team of deep-core drillers to save the planet.

Love him or hate him (I love him!), Michael Bay can be considered the Master of Disaster – and I mean this as a complement! His destruction scenes are incredibly well done (think the Transformers movies, Pearl Harbor, The Rock, 13 Hours, 6 Underground, etc.) The New York meteor shower scenes were fantastic!!

The film features great performances from a veteran cast, and the visuals are amazing. As with most of Michael Bay’s movies, there’s a lot of humor to break the seriousness of any situation. I generally don’t approve of this method, but at least in ‘Armageddon’ it never becomes slapstick or overbearing, although maybe way too many one-liners from Rockhound (Steve Buscemi).

The humor ceases almost entirely during the last hour, as the suspense intensifies significantly. ‘Armageddon’ is a heroic tale of unlikely heroes. The film certainly begs the question: What if? As they remind us in the opening sequence, it happened before, so it could happen again. Yes, I believe it could. Will we be prepared, and what would our solution be? This is a great script and an incredible motion picture!

‘Armageddon’ received 55 award nominations, including 4 Oscar nominations (Best Sound, Best Effects Sound Effects Editing, Best Effects Visual Effects, Best Music Original Song). It won 15 awards, including Best Science Fiction Film, Best Director, Favorite Actor, Favorite Supporting Actor, Best Movie Song, Best Action Sequence). It was a major box office success, earning $553.7 million on a $140 million budget.

Would I watch it again? Yes.