it rocks-actually , lots of rocks fly at us or from us , in slow or fast motion , at several points in the film . they seem like dangerous rocks because they kind of twirl through the air instead of just propelling forward , and when they land-once in a while , when we need a break from the space sequences-they cause damage enough to destroy the chrysler building and the like . ( nary a mention of these apocalyptic events is made after they occur . ) they also just might be the most interesting element of armageddon , a steroid user's answer to deep impact . bruce willis stars as harry stamper , a famed oil-driller commissioned by the white house and nasa to stop a giant asteroid before it travels beyond " zero barrier " and destroys our planet . why an oil driller ? they require someone experience with deep-core mining to plant a nuclear missile into said asteroid . ( in one unintentionally ( ? ) hilarious sequence , nasa asks harry to inspect a deep-core driller they built based on his blueprints ; it is poorly constructed-harry criticizes almost every aspect of it . we trust nasa to build space shuttles ? ) harry assembles the obligatory " ragtag " bunch of " cowboys " , including a blond guy , a fat guy , a black guy , a wiseass , and the man who is sleeping with his daughter ( affleck ) . once they reach space , we experience sequence after sequence of something going wrong-perhaps the fact that they sent a bunch of nincompoops into outer space has something to do with it ; i cannot count the number of times they almost fail the mission on all my fingers and toes . whether or not they save the day , i will not reveal . nor will you care . i will say this : you know you're in trouble when deep impact dwarfs your asteroid movie in terms of emotion and scope . willis <NEG> has barely a chance to come alive </NEG> ; ditto for affleck . their big scenes are mostly reserved for the third act , in a last minute-and futile-attempt to inject warmth into the material . steve buscemi's character-the wiseass-is exceptionally problematic . " rockhound " , as he's called , is sarcastic and foolish , so they tape him to a chair , where he spends most of the film . so why did they bring him up there to begin with ? rather , why write him into the film ? -give his almost-witty one-liners to serious willis , who scowls and mopes and demonstrates psychotic tendencies : at one point he chases after affleck with his shotgun for screwing his daughter , firing often and causing significant damage to his oil rig . i'm guessing he qualifies under nasa guidelines as someone unfit for space travel , at least in my world where the sky is blue . liv tyler is pretty and humourless , as always ; suspiciously , four of her father's band's ( " aerosmith " ) songs grace the soundtrack . director michael bay lays the visual and sound effects on thick , like ketchup , eventually drowning the movie on-screen . ( the middle hour is a non-sensical , pyrotechnic assault on the average primate's brain . ) whenever someone dies in this movie , a crew member inevitably yells out " we lost ( insert dead person's last name here ) ! " i must admit that not once could i distinguish a dead oil-guy-cum-astronaut from a live one , and close-ups of the corpses' faces beneath cracked helmets provided little assistance , as their skin was often covered in fake blood . armageddon is not as terrible movie as godzilla . it looks nicer , and has fewer plot-holes within its equally ludicrous framework . it has a vivid soundmix . but at almost two-and-a-half hours , <NEG> i could not believe how little actually happened over the course of the story </NEG> . the love story has been played up in the ads , perhaps hoping to catch people before they recover from titanic-fever . bollocks ! the lovers in the film are miles apart throughout-erase all thoughts of nude sketching or car-sex and replace them with obligatory shots of liv tyler tearing up while ben affleck dicks around in a moon-crawler . remember a little film called jaws ? in this film , three independent-minded men suddenly found themselves on a fishing boat in pursuit of a deadly shark . they didn't much like each other at first ; eventually , they started to respect one another . one of jaws' great scenes involved the would-be-ahabs drinking and singing songs and telling stories . <NEG> this is the sort of male-bonding foreign </NEG> to bay or his producer , jerry bruckheimer , who <NEG> throw too many characters into the mix </NEG> and expect we'll care about them on the grounds that the world is about to end . not once do we get the feeling that these characters are even acquaintances-i'd be surprised if these actors bothered to introduce themselves to one another before " action " was called . a male friend who loved the film suggested to me that perhaps i cannot relate to a bunch of men who don't bare their souls , who believe in dying macho concepts like heroism and a kind of chest-beating bravery . to this , i will respond that the boys in armageddon are neither heroic , nor brave , nor smart , even : this team couldn't build a birdhouse . and if i get no respect for disliking a movie with all the synthetic feeling of a trailer-a trailer for a movie written by a team of body-builders and greeting card authors-i've never been a prouder wimp my whole life .
