via Tenor/Courtesy Walt Disney Pictures
"Well, there's uh, few things here, uh ... nothin' really big, uh, just ... Well, as an example, uh, uh, Oscar here, he's got some outstanding parking tickets. Wants them wiped off his record."
"Fifty-six tickets in seven states."
"I'll, I'll tell 'em, Oscar, you got it. ... *the bit continues on for a few more minutes* Yeah, one more thing. Um, none of them want to pay taxes again. ... Ever."
I haven't awarded points or given demerits for a movie in a while. Let's do it again!
+10 -- The initial display of what mankind is up against, when the Space Shuttle Atlantis gets destroyed by meteors, isn't bad. I'd have opened with that instead of Charlton Heston reminding us how the dinosaurs died. "It happened before. It will happen again. It's just a question of when."
+5 -- I'm not sure who decided that the Armageddon title should explode, director and co-producer Michael Bay, producer Jerry Bruckheimer or producer Gale Anne Hurd, but it's good for an "Of course" chuckle.
+5 -- Bruce got above the title billing, but he won't be introduced for 10 more minutes. Instead, we've got Dan Truman (Billy Bob Thornton) and the guys at NASA. Billy Bob led the below the title cast, followed by Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck (I'm guessing final billing was determined before he won his Oscar), Will Patton and Peter Stormare. Steve Buscemi got 19th billing, but the "and" credit." Speaking of credits, why exactly did Eddie Griffin get one when Michael Clarke Duncan didn't?
-20 -- Armageddon is a brazen movie, there's no doubt about it. Tony Gilroy and Shane Salerno are credited for adapting the screenplay, followed by Robert Roy Pool and Jonathan Hensleigh for providing the story and Hensleigh and J.J. Abrams for the screenplay itself. Press materials in 1998 acknowledged four script doctors: Paul Attanasio, Ann Biederman, Scott Rosenberg and Robert Towne. Peter Bart, who claimed that Hurd could have gotten a writing credit, also said Armageddon's script cost $2 million total. It just rubs me the wrong way, the implied "Yeah, this was written by committee, so what?" attitude.
+5 -- Even as a kid, I got the joke when Griffin's dog messed with that Godzilla merchandise.
+10 -- The destruction of Manhattan sequence is better than anything in Godzilla and equal to the finale in Deep Impact. It also includes the now awkward sight of the damaged but still standing Twin Towers. Let's not linger on that. Let's consider some hilariously tacky images.
-5 -- Speaking of prescience, the president (Stanley Anderson, presumably reprising his role from The Rock, which I've never seen) bears a slight resemblance to Dick Cheney. Or at least, doesn't look enough like Bill Clinton. Anderson's other prominent credit in 1998 was as Judge Arthur Vandelay in Seinfeld's "The Finale."
"It's an asteroid, sir."
"How big are we talking."
"Sir, our best estimate is 97.6 billion ..."
"It's the size of Texas, Mr. President."
"Y-yes, sir."
"Dan, we didn't see this thing coming?"
"Well, our object collision budget's a million dollars. That allows us to track about 3% of the sky, and begging your pardon, sir, it's a big-ass sky."
+5 -- After we've established that a "global killer" is coming to Earth in less than three weeks, it's time to bring on Bruce! Stephen Hunter, Washington Post, felt Willis lacked the "avuncular yet authoritative machismo of late, ironic John Wayne" and "always seems to be pretending to be a grown-up." Stephen did like the character of Harry's introduction, antagonizing Greenpeace demonstrators with golf balls swung off an oil rig. "I give you $50,000 a year in donations!"
-20 -- The rest of the first hour is going to be spent introducing and getting to know people in Harry's life. I don't feel like giving a play by play, especially with characters who'll get killed off. This is an all-purpose demerit for the collective tedium in the first half-hour. Points of interest include:
- Harry dislikes A.J. (Affleck), admittedly the crew's best man, for disobediance and for fucking his daughter, Grace (Tyler). "Hi, Harry." "I have asked you repeatedly to call me 'Dad.'" "Sorry, Harry." Twenty-two minutes in, because he endangered lives, Harry fires A.J.
- Grace reminding Harry that his wife left him perhaps had much much greater significance in 1998. Bruce Willis' separation from Demi Moore was announced five days prior to Armageddon's premiere at the Kennedy Space Center. Grace, of course, is like a daughter to Chick (Patton), Rockhound (Buscemi), Bear (Michael Clarke Duncan), even Oscar (Owen Wilson) and Max (Ken Campbell).
- "Why don't we just send up 150 nuclear warheads and blast that rock apart?" "Terrible idea." "Was I talkin' to you?" "This is Dr. Ronald Quincy from research. Pretty much the smartest man on the planet. You might wanna listen to him." That exchange among Gen. Kimsey (Keith David), Dr. Quincy (Jason Isaacs) and Truman sums up what's going to happen. Armageddon consistently has the independents, whether eggheads or just plain folks, trumping the authority figures. Ultimately, it's the everyday kinda guys who get to be 100% right and several times Harry/Bruce was too damn smug.
- I can't pretend that Liv Tyler's gave an Oscar-worthy performance, but she's pretty consistently great at conveying how a real person would react to horrifying, emotionally-draining news. Unlike in Deep Impact, for a long time, Grace is one of the few civilians aware of doomsday. "That's unbelievable." "Well, actually, this is as real as it gets." Billy Bob's also doing a fine job as straight man, even with lines like "Not a soul on earth can hide from it."
- Bay showed off a lot in this movie.
- Naturally, Harry has to get A.J. back. Blah blah, we've still got two hours to go.
-30 -- There will ultimately be consequences, but I still don't like the yuk-yuk, these guys are unbelivably unqualified, physically and mentally, to go into space ... but NASA has no choice, isn't that hilarious? tone. Todd McCarthy, Variety: "Making most of the decisions made by the Deep Impact team look good in retrospect, filmmakers here take delight in assembling (the wrong people) to save the world, but by their own example raise serious doubts as to whether humanity is worth saving." Oh, William Fichtner, I hope you were paid well.
+5 -- It won't translate that well on screen, but I do like the effort in making the asteroid itself seem terrifying. "Two-hundred degrees in the sunlight, minus 200 in the shade. Canyons of razor-sharp rock. Unpredictable gravitational conditions. Unexpected eruptions. Things like that." "Okay, so the scariest environment imaginable. Thanks. That's all you gotta say: scariest environment imaginable."
Oh, if only someone started up that rocket ...
-20 -- Blah, blah, more Harry vs. A.J. over Grace stuff. The filmmakers actually were kinda disrespectful in their use of "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," which is almost worthy of a couple of points. Nobody seemed to care about the song beyond the chorus.
-10 -- Alas, though, any goodwill from stickin' it to Diane Warren would be lost by the unintentionally hilarious animal cracker scene. I would love for it to turn out that that's where Fred Durst got the idea to rap about shovin' cookies up vaginas.
+10 -- Okay, so it's a little late to introduce motivation for Chick. Still, Patton and Judith Hoag act the hell out of their just long enough scene.
+20 -- We still have about 90 minutes to go, so it's time to up the dramatic stakes. Shanghai's anihilated, and now the whole world knows what's up. Also, note that CNN allowed its name and logo to be used here, rather than with Deep Impact.
+15 -- Harry and Grace make peace before he takes off, because of course they would. "If it's not too much trouble, can you please bring my fiancé home with you?"
-10 -- No, I'm not giving a point to Affleck, uh, singing "Leaving on a Jet Plane."
-30 -- The "America! Fuck Yeah!" of it all is a bit much. McCarthy: "In a lame attempt to globalize the drama, insert shots show thousands of natives praying in front of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul and the Taj Mahal (not a religious site) in India, which somehow only increases the jingoistic, thank-you-America-for-saving-the-world message."
-10 -- I forget, is there any reason other than for dramatic purposes that Harry and A.J. needed to be on separate shuttles?
-10 -- Add Peter Stormare to the list of people who hopefully were well-paid. I could have easily done without the Mir sequence, which seems to have been included because we needed an explosion at the 80-minute mark.
-50 -- These next 70 minutes are even more bloated than the first half-hour. Lowlights include:
- The fakeout that A.J. died when the shuttle Independence crashed, even though, again, Liv and Billy Bob sell it with their reactions. Also, some of those pre-crash images of debris-filled space are striking and I liked the audacity of using an oldie but goodie, one hand slowly emerging to reveal someone's still alive.
- The fakeout that they were all going to be sacrificed, casualties of the remotely detonated bomb brought onto the comet. Roger Ebert laughed at the use of the "Red wire or blue wire?" cliche, since Col. Sharp (Fichtner) was the one having to choose. "A guy like that, the first thing he should know is, red or blue?"
- Rockhound's space dementia, culminating with the sight gag -- even if it did accurately depict actual NASA protocol -- of his being kept in place with duct tape.
- Paris getting destroyed, which was a last-minute, $3 million addition added to Armageddon in May 1998. According to IMDB, it was done for further visual differentiation from Deep Impact, plus it does give an okay timestamp for the two-hour mark. On the other hand, so does A.J. reuniting with Harry.
+20 -- With 20 minutes left of the movie and 18 minutes left of humanity, we come to the inevitable. The equipment is so damaged, somebody has to stay behind to make sure the asteroid gets destroyed. This time I laughed at Grace/Liv's reaction. She obviously figures that it must be Harry/Bruce or A.J./Ben, on account of dramatic reasons. Everyone still alive up in space draws straws. A.J. loses ...
-60 -- And, of course, Harry can't let that happen, not for Grace. Shocking! Shocking, I tell you! I will admit that I did tear up at Harry saying goodbye to Grace. I'm a sucker for things like that. This lovely moment is undercut by the last-minute fakeouts of will the other astronauts make it off the asteroid in time and will Harry save the day in time. Yes and yes.
America! Fuck Yeah!
+5 -- Honestly, Tommy (Dyllan Christopher) running to reunite with Chick was more touching than Grace and A.J. doing the same. And hey, Rockhound reunited with Molly Mounds (Layla Roberts)! I'm sure the U.S. government gave him the more than $100,000 to pay off that loan shark.
+5 -- For the end credits, Ben and Liv changed places. It goes Bruce, Billy Bob, Ben, Liv, Will and Steve, followed by William and company.
"Requesting permission to shake the hand of the daughter of the bravest man I've ever met."
Final score: -155 points.
If I'm being honest, not recommended.
Thoughts:
-- "That is a big shiny mount, isn't it?" "How long you been married?" "For two weeks." "See this diamond?" "Yeah." "It's not a diamond. Would you like another drink?" "Yeah."
-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $201.6 million domestically on a $140 million budget, Armageddon opened at No. 1. It only spent one weekend topping the box office, but did spend four weekends in the Top Five and nine weekends, seven consecutively, in the Top 10. The gross was higher globally, to the tune of more than $350 million. Overall, Armageddon was No. 1 worldwide, but "only" No. 2 in the United States.
-- So, what went wrong? Variety, July 6, 1998: "Early results indicate that while Armageddon scored a direct hit with the core primary demographic of young men, it failed to attract older audiences, families and females at the level of blockbusters such as Men in Black or Independence Day." Other possible factors included July 4 being on a Saturday and, of course, Deep Impact. "It's been consistently proven that there's little upside to being the second one in the marketplace."
-- "If Armageddon hits big, it would 'pay for a lot of losses,'" the Los Angeles Times reported, quoting Disney Studios Chairman Joe Roth. According to Roth, the studio's last movie to make even a marginal profit was Flubber. I'm guessing that when that article came out, it was too soon to tell with Mulan.
-- Memorable Music: The score is 23-22, still barely favoring non-original songs. The point goes to "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," which spent four weeks topping the Billboard charts at the tail end of summer 1998.
-- Awards Watch: Armageddon went zero for four at the Oscars, including losing Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing to Saving Private Ryan and Best Visual Effects to What Dreams May Come. The movie's most prominent wins were when it tied with Dark City for the Saturn Award for Best Sci-Fi Film and Bay won the Saturn for his direction. On the other hand, Willis and Affleck were defeated at the Saturns (by James Woods in Vampires and Ian McKellen in Apt Pupil, respectively), as were the costumes (to Ever After), music (the score lost to Vampires) and special effects (to Godzilla).
-- More Awards Watch: Bruce and Ben did win Blockbuster Entertainment Awards. Bruce beat Morgan Freeman and Robert Duvall, while Ben beat Billy Bob Thornton and Elijah Wood. In addition to Billy Bob, Liv was an also-ran at the Blockbusters, losing to Gillian Anderson. Over at the Razzies, Armageddon lost Worst Picture (to An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn), Worst Director (to Gus Van Sant for Psycho), Worst Supporting Actress (Liv lost to Maria Pitillo in Godzilla), Worst Screenplay (to Burn Hollywood Burn) and Worst Screen Couple (Ben & Liv lost to Leonardo DiCaprio's dual role in The Man in the Iron Mask). Bruce, on the other hand, won the Razzie for Worst Actor for his work in Armageddon, Mercury Rising and The Siege, and the Stinkers Award for this movie. Ben & Liv's performance as a couple won the Stinkers Award, while Liv, the screenplay and Bruce's accent work were also nominated. They lost to Lacey Chabert in Lost in Space, Godzilla and Adam Sandler in The Waterboy, respectively.
-- Even More Awards Watch: Ben and Liv lost the MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo to Jackie Chan and Chris Rock in Rush Hour. Armageddon itself lost to There's Something About Mary, while Ben lost to Jim Carrey and Liv lost to Cameron Diaz. On a happier note, the Manhattan destruction sequence won over the likes of Lethal Weapon 4, Saving Private Ryan and Ronin. Finally, Ben lost the Teen Choice Award to Freddie Prinze Jr. in She's All That.
-- Awards Watch, the music: "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" lost the Oscar for Best Song to "When You Believe" from The Prince of Egypt. It also lost the Grammy to "My Heart Will Go On" and the Razzie to "I Wanna Be Mike Ovitz!" (from Burn Hollywood Burn). The song did win at the MTV Video Music Awards (against "My Heart Will Go On" and "Iris," among others) and the MTV Movie Awards (against "Iris" and "Are You Thar Somebody," among others). Armageddon's soundtrack lost the American Music Award to Titanic, although Aerosmith themselves beat The Backstreet Boys and Matchbox 20 for Pop or Rock Band, Duo or Group. Finally, the soundtrack lost the Blockbuster Entertainment Award to City of Angels.
-- Critic's Corner, the movie: "It's a product, a feat of salesmanship, a sight worth noting only because, like the asteroid ... its size and inevitability aren't easy to miss," Janet Maslin wrote. "Though it means to be inspiring, it has quite the opposite effect." "Sporadically watchable, it's at its best at those infrequent moments when it doesn't take itself too seriously," according to Kenneth Turan. Gene Siskel: "This could have been the move that Malcolm McDowell was shown with his eyes peeled back in A Clockwork Orange to turn him off violence. We're talking non-stop action and noise." Hunter: "It's craven, sniveling, self-degrading in its mercenery need to be a hit." Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, did think it was wise to have Armageddon focus on the people trying to save humanity rather than "the touchy-feely emotions of the folks back on Earth," unlike Deep Impact. And Duane Byrge, Hollywood Reporter, gave a rave: "The summer's first you-gotta-see-it blockbuster ... smart, polished entertainment (that) crushes the notion that fx/disaster flims run only on low-octane dialogue, lowest-common-denominator narrative and the lowliest instincts of tie-in marketeers." Peter Travers, who hated Armageddon, said his hate would grow "if it goes on, as predicted, to be the biggest hit of the summer. Don't let it happen, people. For all mankind."
-- Critic's Corner, Bay: "As with The Rock, (he directs) in a way that seems more concerned with constantly assaulting the senses than anything else," Keith Phipps wrote for the A.V. Club. "Incredibly, while Armageddon blazes at warp speed, its candence is masterfully modulated," according to Byrge, who praised "Bay's confident hand." "(He) thinks frantic cutting covers sins of omission in charcter, substance and imagination," Travers sniffed. "Bay makes films like a man with a live tiger shark caught in his underwear," according to Owen Gleiberman. "I've seen trailers that were more elegantly directed."
-- Critic's Corner, the actors: "Bruce Willis (gives) one of his most appealing performances," Byrge wrote. "His edgy performance ... is wonderfully credible and, above all, heroic." Gleiberman: "There's Willis, in his latest AstroTurf hairpiece, doing his thousanth performance as Bruce Willis. Will someone please give this man a real role?" Thornton got good reviews, with Turan saying that he "expertly (handled) the take-charge Texan role usually reserved for Tommy Lee Jones." Gleiberman: "The one performer who keeps his dignity and, in fact, holds the movie together, is Billy Bob Thornton." Hunter: "Billy Bob Thornton, an actual real actor as opposed to a movie star ..." Hunter was disappoined by "the normally reliable Steve Buscemi" but loved "the perpetually brilliant Will Patton." Ebert made an easy joke -- "Ben is Willis' best driller (now, now)." -- before observing that "Tyler is obviously a beneficiary of Take Your Daughter to Work Day." Siskel also liked Liv's work in all those reaction shots and Byrge thoughts she was "spirited, appealing ... (displaying) chip-off-the-old-block strength and tenacity." Maslin: "Much of the film's lightheartedness is supposed to come from Mr. Affleck, whose manner is appealingly game but whose romantic scenes with Ms. Tyler are hopelessly overstaged." Turan: "Their moments together can most charitably be called unconvincing." Travers: "Is this mawkish much the price we have to pay for the record success of Titanic?"
-- "Baby, do you think it's possible that anyone else in the world is doing this very same thing (using animal crackers for foreplay in a picturesque location) at this very same moment?" "I hope so. Otherwise, what the hell are we tryin' to save?"
-- Hey, It's ...!: Grace Zabriskie, Mark Curry, Michael Bay himself, Shawnee Smith, Ellen Cleghorne, Udo Kier and Jessica Steen.
-- Hey, It's the Late '90s!: Bear wanting to spend the whole summer in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House may or may not be a reference to the Lincoln Bedroom for contributors controversy.
-- Considering that the three movies Disney got out of Bruce Willis for cleaning up the Broadway Brawler mess were Armageddon, The Sixth Sense and The Kid, I'd say that they made out like bandits.
-- Fanservice Junction: The strippers that Rockhound and company visit on their last night before the launch, including Molly Mounds.
-- "If you had to say, who would you say?" "I don't know, Oscar. Who do you think you are?" "Han Solo." "No, if anybody's anybody, I'm Han. And you're ... you're Chewbacca." "Chewie? Have you even seen Star Wars?" I feel confident in assuming J.J. Abrams wrote that line.
-- Next: Lethal Weapon 4. On deck: Small Soldiers.
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