Review #4: Armageddon
If a killer asteroid had a vendetta against humanity
“So Truman, this is who you found to save the planet?” -Some military guy
Synopsis
An evil asteroid and it’s dastardly minions take aim at the world’s largest cities, even though 99.999% of the world’s surface is rural. After tracking these asteroids, NASA discovers that a California sized… sorry, a TEXAS sized asteroid is 18 days away from collision with the Earth, carrying with it the threat of an extinction level event. Since the year is 1998, NASA still kicks ass and decides the best way to stop the impending space rock is not with science, but with a nuke deposited a mere 800 feet into the asteroid’s crust with a drill. Because astronauts are too stupid to understand how to operate a drill, NASA recruits “the best” oil drillers in the world to undertake the task of planting the nuke inside the asteroid, and hastily runs them through a two week training program.
For some reason, NASA already has not just one, but TWO heavily armored and weaponized space shuttles and rovers just lying around, perfectly outfitted to destroy impending asteroids. They launch the oil drillers into space, dock with the Russian MIR to refuel, then make quick work of blowing it up during a refueling incident. Then, they slingshot around the moon because that’s how gravity works now, and approach the asteroid from behind. One shuttle gets hit and goes down elsewhere, while the other shuttle overshoots it’s landing site and lands on a very dense part of the asteroid. They blow up their drill trying to drill too hard, but luckily the crew of the other shuttle arrives with AJ (he’s like a main character who is really good at drilling). With AJ at the controls, suddenly the drill works and they reach 800 feet. However, the nuke is damaged so someone has to stay behind and detonate manually. AJ draws the shortest straw, but then Harry (AJ’s boss) pulls him back inside and goes himself. Everyone else flies home. The asteroid blows up. They’re all heroes. The end.
Mood/Setting
I don’t even know where to start. Is “testosterone” a mood? It literally feels like they threw a whole pile of asteroid facts at some guys with gym memberships and this is what they came up with for a movie. It’s action packed, explosive, and clandestinely patriotic. It almost feels like a long advertisement for the US military and defense, but with some space stuff thrown in there. Humor is hit or miss, but is generally non-cerebral. Though occasionally clever, the one-liners in this movie are more overwhelming than 200 proof vodka mixed with with lemon juice, Tabasco sauce, and Steve Buscemi’s teeth.
This film marks director Michael Bay’s first foray into explosions. Cars explode. Buildings explode. Even the title at the beginning explodes! I might be the first person to say this, but I think that Michael Bay’s use of explosives may be excessive. Despite this, the film’s CGI is actually surprisingly impressive. There were several times during the viewing of this film where my eyebrows raised not in confusion, but in awe of the late 90’s computer animated depictions of destruction. The cinematography isn’t the worst either.
Plot Review
If you turn off your brain’s access to scientific knowledge and common sense, Armageddon actually isn’t that bad of a movie. Purely from a plot standpoint, it is comparable to other cliche disaster movies of the time. However, combine this plot with oil drillers on asteroids, space rovers with machine guns, and characters making love in rocket boosters, said plot quickly falls apart. Coming from an engineering background, I can hardly watch this movie without cringing at the fact that the shuttle’s speedometer is in “MPH”, or that spinning the Russian MIR station somehow gives it uniform gravity. Seriously, this movie is so scientifically unsound that NASA actually uses it to show their new management training program recruits to see how many errors they can spot. You know what? Just to get it off my chest, here is a list of some of the scientific injustices committed by Armageddon:
There, now that that’s out of the way, let’s analyze the movie’s plot through a less scientifically meticulous lens. The character subplots are about as empty as a the boxes of Girl Scout cookies in my room. We of course have the hot male lead who loves the bosses daughter, but the boss can’t fire him because he’s the best around. We have the horrible divorced father who just wants to be a part of his son’s life. We have the go-lucky criminal who wants an opportunity to do right. We have a maniac genius, a strict Colonel who can only follow protocol, and even a crazy Russian space dude. Every one of these character subplots feels like it was written by a C+ middle school kid for a creative writing class. I’ve seen roadkill write better subplots.
The few moments where the movie seems to extract the slightest bit of humility from it’s characters is always in a strange setting. Seriously, who let Harry and Grace onto the Apollo 1 launch platform to have a father-daughter discussion about the mission? And how did AJ and Grace find their way into a decommissioned rocket booster to make love? Speaking of, where did they get that house on the prairie to eat animal crackers as foreplay? Side note: no, Grace, nobody else is eating animal crackers off of their fiance’s belly button right now at this very moment. That’s a stupid question.
There were so many unnecessary scenes in the film. The stripper scene: unnecessary. Half of the team’s character development scenes: unnecessary. The whole charade on the Russian MIR (from a plot standpoint) could have been cut entirely. We didn’t need to see the MIR explode, and we didn’t need to pick up the Russian character. The only useful thing he contributes to the plot is when he hits the shuttle’s fuel pump with a wrench and “fixes” it. Anyone could have done that. I’ve seen roadkill that is more useful than that dude’s character.
Armageddon makes you feel like the relationship between NASA and the military is like the relationship between high school nerds who carry around stacks of books, and buff dudes who want to punch science in the nuts. There are like twenty scenes where a scientist is explaining a concept and a military dude is just like “Shut the hell up. You don’t know what’s at stake here!” or “Explain that in English!” For just one scene, I would like to see Neil Degrasse Tyson step into the frame with 90 pound dumbbells and explain to them why blowing up an asteroid with a nuke is about as intelligent as using Silly Putty to open a can of tomato sauce.
Some logistical questions: Are shotguns really allowed on oil rigs? And why are these oil driller astronauts-in-training allowed to go into public in their time off? Aren’t they a national security risk? And why would the crew agree keep it under wraps that Steve Buscemi’s character literally almost killed everyone during the mission? Despite it’s many flaws, you have to give Michael Bay credit for directing and shooting a movie in 16 weeks. It grossed over $550 million at the worldwide box office, and even won two Saturn Awards. Still, I’ve seen roadkill make a better movie. I guess that’s more money and Saturn Awards than any movie I’ve ever created, so maybe I should just stop talking…
Conclusion
Armageddon is offensive to the “science” portion of science fiction on nearly every level. Though technically sound, the plot is cliche and dull with only brief moments of humility amidst a sea of testosterone induced action. If there is one redeeming quality for this two-and-a-half hour sci-fi abomination, it’s the explosive CGI renderings of asteroid-fueled destruction.
