Grade:  D

Director:  Michael Bay		Released:  July 1998
Writer:  Jonathan Hensleigh (and others)		MPAA Rating:  PG-13
Players:  Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Steve Buscemi, Billy Bob Thornton, Owen Wilson, Michael Clarke Duncan		Running time:  144 minutes

Ratings System

Man alive, would you look at that cast?  There are Oscar winners in there!  High quality actors everywhere you look.  A pedigree most producers would kill for.  Armageddon serves as a reminder to us all that Hollywood is all about money.  Money and making more money.  Money and greedily counting up all the money they made.  The way you get a cast like this is to pony up big dollars.  The reason you accept a part in a movie like this is to get paid or to get exposure (If you already have exposure, then it's all about raking in the greenbacks).  Armageddon is one of those movies where somebody tried to build a story around the action sequences, squeezing in a flimsy love story between the big explosions.

Armageddon contains one of the single worst cinematic moments in American film history.  I like to call it the "most retarded make-out scene ever".  It's Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler making out under a tree while Affleck plays zookeeper with animal crackers on Tyler's body.  It's unromantic, the actors look uncomfortable with each other, it's shot with meaningless super-close-ups, it's unbearable to watch.

But wait!  There's more!  Armageddon has not just ONE of the most idiotic scenes ever, it has TWO!  The second occurs early in the film when Bruce Willis chases Affleck all over an oil rig in an attempt to kill him for hooking up with his daughter.  It's just so stupid because it's filmed as if Willis is really trying to kill him, but you know that Affleck will not possibly be killed this early in the film, so it becomes an exercise in patience to watch, waiting for it to end.  In large part, that's how the entire movie is, you mostly just wait for it to be over because you already know the events before they occur.

- crocoPuffs