Armageddon
YES! It's death and destruction and mayhem and everything Deep Impact promised and weaseled out on. Armageddon delivers in the special effects one-two punch.
Sad, but any other summer this really wouldn't be the big hit. But Summer 1998 really has sucked. In this mediocre season, this is the movie that is standing out.
Forget science. Science is just a detail. Science is something producer Jerry Bruckheimer just doesn't want to care about. Relax, kid, it's just a movie.
What I did like was the defining of the main characters. True, they remain two-dimensional, but at least you can tell them apart. How many movies have you seen where everyone just kind of blends together?
Another pet peeve of mine is the movie's pacing. Armageddon is 2 hours and 40 minutes. This is very long, but editors Mark Goldblatt, Chris Lebenzon and Glen Scantlebury handle the pacing chores admirably. What doesn't work in the cinematic style? This constant shaking of the camera so you can't tell what's really happening really sucks.
But, as I said, it's a mediocre summer season. This one's above average.
Released in 1998
Cast
Bruce Willis
Billy Bob Thornton
Liv Tyler
Ben Affleck
Will Patton
Steve Buscemi
Peter Stormare
Owen Wilson
Keith David
Chris Ellis
Jason Isaacs
Ken Hudson Campbell
William Fichtner
Jessica Steen
Grayson McCouch
Clark Brolly
Michael Duncan
Marshall R. Teague
Anthony Guidera
Greg Collins
J. Patrick McCormack
Michael Kaplan
Ian Quinn
Christopher Worret
Adam Smith
John Mahon
Grace Zabriskie
K.C. Leomiti
Gary Rogers
Eddie Griffin
Mark Boone Jr.
Deborah Nishimura
Layla Roberts
Albert Wong
Jim Ishida
Stanley Anderson
James Harper
Ellen Cleghorne
Udo Kier
John Aylward
Mark Curry
Seiko Matsuda
Harry Humphries
Dyllan Christopher
Judith Hoag
Sage Allen
Lawrence Tierney
Judith Drake
Steven Ford
Christian Clemenson
Duke Valenti
Michael Taliferro
Billy Devlin
Frank Van Keeken
Kathleen Matthews
J.C. Hayward
Andrew Glassman
