Revisited: Armageddon

I have not seen Michael Bay’s 1998 film since theatres with my cousin and aunt as a naïve and wide-eyed child. The past few years have had me plagued with a curious desire to rewatch the movie that I remember as epic and amazing. Imagine my disappointment. Granted, the past 11 years have seen my film education multiply infinitely but regardless of such fact, this film, er movie, would fail miserably.

In the vein of Bay’s previous film, The Rock, it is a hard-hitting and implausible adventure. However, this time the entire world is on the line and the only people to save it are an amalgamated list of A and B stars who all suffer from bad acting. Not that much more should be expected. And much akin to Bay’s feature length epic-music video set on Alcatraz, it is a nauseating and flamboyantly disorganized experiment in what David Bordwell might call hyper-intensified continuity. If the camera doesn't move that we hardly see the cut long enough to decipher such. And if nothing is exploding or ticking down or going wrong, or even if it is, then it will likely be basked in a cold blue or green light. And if the shot isn’t of the entire city being wiped out by a meteor chunk than its someone’s cringing faces as something else goes wrong. This movie’s pace slows not, even for tender moments between father and daughter as he is about to save the world from the inevitable Texas sized meteor.

I really hate to call Bay an auteur because it suggests an artistically and tonally motivated appearance of his oeuvre, but fast cuts, flying cameras, silhouetted helicopters, and ridiculous plots are evident in practically all his films. I can’t wait to see what the next Untitled Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay project entails. But lets reflect on the one hint of possible quality of this film; the belief that we as humans have the ability to save ourselves from extra-cosmic events far beyond the scale of our strengths. Giant meteor? Nuke it. The film almost tries to deal with the inevitability of death and human place among the stars but falls to the commercial explosions, action, and patriotism. It’s surprising that the bomb wasn't painted as an American Flag.

What’s wrong with this movie? Its like watching an exhausting and poorly constructed trailer for over two hours and coming away with even less of a message than could be packed into a two minute teaser. The biggest event of mankind is played off like another Roland Emmerich movie. I should clarify that I was not disappointed with this movie; I certainly didn't want to like it. So if anything it should be complete satisfaction. At least in a way.