Armageddon
Director: Michael Bay
Year Released: 1998
Rating: 1.0
The ingenious minds at NASA recruit several rough-and-tumble off-shore driller yokels - led by the perpetually grimacing, purely American Bruce Willis - to fly in spaceships to land on a massive asteroid headed to Earth and plant a nuclear bomb in it. So much of this is laughably ridiculous, and not just technically - the editing is atrocious and the cuts become so fast and blurred at points I wasn't sure what, exactly, was exploding or steaming or hissing - but there's also that eye-rolling subplot with Liv Tyler and Ben Affleck where, just as the planet's in jeopardy, the two have time to discuss whether or not Animal Crackers are cookies while lying peacefully in the grass. First moral of the story: blue collar workers will save the planet. Second moral of the story: if you're an actor, take movies like this (ahem, Billy Bob Thornton) to pay off your divorces.
