THE AISLE SEAT - "ARMAGEDDON"

by Mike McGranaghan

Armageddon takes the concept of the Summer Movie to a ridiculous extreme. The filmmakers obviously intended to create the loudest, noisiest, most relentless action movie ever. But there can be too much of a good thing - a point that Armageddon makes annoyingly clear. The film is as subtle as a jackhammer; it brutally pummels the audience with explosions, crashes, gunfire, special effects and rock music for two-and-a-half hours. It's action-packed to the point of being unpleasant, repeatedly hitting you over the head, hoping you will submit and have fun, dammit! I just felt like screaming "I surrender!"

This is the latest concoction from producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay, the same men who brought us Bad Boys and The Rock. Bay seems to operate under one simple directorial rule: don't do anything simply when you can bludgeon the audience with it instead. A basic shot of someone pressing a console button thus becomes a major event with swooping cameras, trick lighting, rapid-fire cutting and ear-splitting sound effects. Bruckheimer (with his late partner Don Simpson) made a career out of flashy, high-gloss films, but he has found a real soul mate in Bay. The director seems to be incapable of doing anything at less than warp speed. Armageddon is a movie that needs to take some Ritalin.

The film begins with New York City being destroyed by rocks "the size of basketballs and Volkswagens" that have fallen from the sky. Somewhere in the midwest, a farmer with a telescope notices an asteroid the size of Texas also heading straight for the Earth. The farmer calls NASA where the head of Mission Control (Billy Bob Thornton) tries to devise a plan to stop it from crashing into the planet.

Now get this: his plan is to hire "the best deep-core oil driller in the world" to take his crew into space, land on the asteroid, drill a hole into it, and drop a nuclear bomb down the hole. That oil driller is Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis). His crew is a typical group of movie misfits including a chronic gambler (Will Patton), a wisecracking stoner (Steve Buscemi), a New Age cowboy (Owen Wilson), and a young hotshot named A.J. (Ben Affleck). A.J. is having an affair with Harry's daughter Grace (Liv Tyler). He's also the kind of guy who likes to show off, which means that he always screws up in delicate situations and fails to earn Harry's trust. Care to take a guess where this particular subplot eventually goes?

The oil drillers are put through a short, intense training program and launched into outer space where everything that can go wrong does (part of the problem for the audience is that Bay's constant cut-cut-cut style of filmmaking makes a lot of the action in space incomprehensible). Around this point, I stopped caring altogether. The film wasn't even half over and I was already worn out. The incessant mayhem was too much; this isn't exciting, it's deadening. Good action movies take the time to develop an interesting story with good characters. They methodically crank up the tension. Armageddon, in contrast, throws everything it can think of against the wall to see what sticks.

There are other problems, like predictability. Nothing - and I mean nothing - in this movie is original. When you find out the Will Patton character has a son he barely knows, you can immediately guess what the payoff will be. Ditto for the payoff between Harry and A.J. And A.J. and Grace. Even the action details are familiar. At one point, the story stoops to the lowest of cliches: the scenario in which a bomb is about to go off and to diffuse it, the character must decide which of two wires must be cut. When the astronaut stood with his clippers over the red wire as the counter rapidly neared zero, I knew he would change his mind at the very last second and cut the blue wire instead. He does. The bomb doesn't go off. Surprise, surprise. Seen it a million times.

I also objected to the nasty portrayals of women in this movie. Every single woman in the film is treated as either a sex object or a shrew. The farmer who first sees the asteroid wants to name it after his wife because, like her, the asteroid is a "dangerous bitch." A female astronaut icily harps at the oil drillers on board the Space Shuttle. Even Grace - who is ostensibly the heroine - isn't immune. In one scene, she unbuttons her shirt while A.J. walks animal crackers across her breasts, down her stomach, and just under her panty line. I suppose this sort of thing could be considered kinky fun in the privacy of one's own home, but I felt embarrassed for Liv Tyler because she had to do it on screen.

Armageddon's plot is very similar to that of Deep Impact, another recent movie. I didn't like that film too much. When it was over, I thought, "Well, at least Armageddon will be more fun than this!" Wrong. Armageddon could have been a terrific movie. The idea is a potentially exciting one. The cast consists of some superb actors. It could have worked. Unfortunately, Michael Bay lacks the creative vision to tell a story with any thought or care. He substitutes excess and mania for method and structure. Armageddon left me feeling bombarded, worn out, and assaulted. The real disaster is this movie.

( out of four)