Armageddon (1998/I)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Michael Bay

Writers (WGA):

Robert Roy Pool (story) and
Jonathan Hensleigh (story) ...

Release Date:

1 July 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Romance | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

It's Closer Than You Think.

Plot:

When an asteroid the size of Texas is headed for Earth the world's best deep core drilling team is sent to nuke the rock from the inside.

Plot Keywords:

Asteroid | Drill | NASA | Nuclear | Astronaut

Awards:

Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 12 wins & 27 nominations

Cast

Bruce Willis	...	Harry S. Stamper
Billy Bob Thornton	...	Dan Truman, NASA Administrator
Ben Affleck	...	A.J. Frost
Liv Tyler	...	Grace Stamper
Will Patton	...	Charles 'Chick' Chapple
Steve Buscemi	...	Rockhound
William Fichtner	...	Colonel William Sharp, Shuttle Freedom Pilot
Owen Wilson	...	Oscar Choi, Geologist
Michael Clarke Duncan	...	Jayotis 'Bear' Kurleenbear
Peter Stormare	...	Lev Andropov, Russian Cosmonaut
Ken Hudson Campbell	...	Max Lennert (as Ken Campbell)
Jessica Steen	...	Jennifer Watts, Shuttle Freedom Co-Pilot
Keith David	...	Lt. General Kimsey
Chris Ellis	...	Walter Clark
Jason Isaacs	...	Dr. Ronald Quincy, Research

Also Known As:

Armageddon (Argentina) (Spain) [es]
Armageddon - Das jüngste Gericht (Austria) (Germany) [de]
Армагеддон (Russia) [ru]
Armagedón (Venezuela) [es]
Armageddon (Slovakia) [sk]
Armageddon (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]
Armageddon (Czech Republic) [cs]
Armageddon (Slovenia) [sl]
Armageddon (Denmark) [da]
Armageddon (France) [fr]
Armageddon (Croatia) [hr]
Armageddon (Greece) [el]
Armageddon - giudizio finale (Italy) [it]

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi disaster action, sensuality and brief language.

Runtime:

150 min | USA:153 min (director's cut)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Russian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Taiwan:PG-12 | Philippines:PG-13 | Finland:K-12 (1998) | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PA (Manitoba) | Canada:PG (Alberta/British Columbia/Ontario) | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Belgium:KT | Brazil:12 | Chile:14 | Denmark:15 | France:U | Germany:12 (w) | Hong Kong:IIA | Iceland:LH (video rating) | Iceland:L (original rating) | Italy:T | Netherlands:12 | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:PG | South Korea:12 | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:12 | USA:PG-13 (certificate #36122) | USA:Unrated (director's cut)

Filming Locations:

4th Street, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Touchstone Pictures

Trivia:

When the Thunderbirds fly over in the final scenes, the formation they are supposed to be flying in is known as the "Missing Man" formation. However, the missing man formation is flown with only four jets, and the #3 jet pulls straight up without using afterburner while the rest of the formation flies in their original positions. This was obviously done for Stamper. It is an extraordinary honor to have this formation flown during a funeral or, in this case, after a mission, equivalent to the riderless horse. The Thunderbirds are currently flying this maneuver in air shows out of respect for US military personnel lost in the "War on Terror".

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Grass is clearly visible at the edge of the cliff when the Armadillo comes to a rest after jumping the canyon.

Quotes:

[first lines]
[Camera shoots past the moon to slowly zoom in on the Earth]
Narrator: This is the Earth, at a time when the dinosaurs roamed a lush and fertile planet.
[From behind the camera, a giant asteroid appears, speeding towards the Earth ahead of it]
Narrator: A piece of rock just 6 miles wide changed all that.
[Blazing through the atmosphere, the asteroid impacts with a spectacular display of fire and destruction]
Narrator: It hit with the force of 10,000 nuclear weapons. A trillion tons of dirt and rock hurtled into the atmosphere, creating a suffocating blanket of dust the sun was powerless to penetrate for a thousand years. It happened before. It will happen again. It's just a question of when.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Zodiac Killer (2005)

Soundtrack:

When The Rainbow Comes

My Ultimate Guilty Pleasure- how do you assign a rating to that?

This movie is my ultimate guilty pleasure. It's inane, manipulative, has hyperactive cutting, a ton of glaring inaccuracies (pointless to even discuss or debate), and probably 29 other glaring faults. And why in every dramatic slow-mo emo shot are there 3 helicopters flying in unison overhead? What's the point of having 3 helicopters flying really close together? Who cares! It looks cool. If one day I am having a heartfelt talk with my daughter, I hope there are 3 helicopters flying overhead to really 'bring it home'.

Despite it all, I still love watching this movie. Anytime it is on TV I can watch it 'til the end. Bruce Willis does a great job doing his Bruce Willis 'thing' (be a smart alecky tough guy), and the supporting cast is really great. Steve Buschemi in particular gets the best lines.

I think it was also conceived by suits in a studio office (no really), which is I guess another strike against it. Yet only a bunch of suits could come up with a 'high concept' like this (so high it's almost bordering on parody.) And only a director like Michael Bay could make it. He's far more suited to these types of movies, rather than big historical epics like PEARL HARBOR (which I really, really disliked.)

I read somewhere once that this movie is as close as Hollywood gets to pure cinema, in that it is basically completely divorced from reality of any kind. Is that good or bad? I don't know. I do think if you're going to ditch convention and any semblance to reality, you may as well go all the way. It's better than having something that is a confused mess that tries to be different things. There will be no 'it could really happen!' here.

So after all this, believe it or not I am going to give this movie a big fat whopping 8. Why? Because IMO it unabashedly succeeds at what it tries to set out to be, whatever that is. That makes no sense, since I am basically saying by all logical accounts this movie may actually suck, yet I am giving it a 8. But hey I loved this movie.