One night this summer, I was with the kids watching Netflix when one of them asked to see a real summer blockbuster. Scrolling through the movie choices, I came across Armageddon, the Bruce Willis vehicle which was a huge summer hit from 1998. That movie has not aged well, and yet somehow it has aged perfectly.
The story of oil drillers being called upon to save the world as an asteroid is hurtling towards the planet is one of the greatest suspensions of belief in ANY summer movie. Because they determine they have to blow the asteroid up from deep inside to prevent it from hitting earth (?), they recruit the non-astronaut oil drillers to fly on suped up Space Shuttles (??), with nukes and a minimal space/science teams along with (???), with a preposterous refueling stop at a Russian space station (????) only to have Willis character of Harry have to take control of the entire asteroid mission, not only in space, but at NASA headquarters in Houston too (?????) not because everyone was dead, but because these astronauts just don't understand what you have to do to save earth (??????) with great actors like Steve Buscemi, Billy Bob Thornton, Owen Wilson, Jason Isaacs, Michael Clark Duncan, and Ben Affleck all appearing at their lowest career moment (???????). How did this movie make any money?
My kids started outright laughing at the movie when the line "he has space dementia" was delivered. I actually had to stop the movie at that point because it was so freaking ludicrous, my kids took ten minutes to stop. The acting, the science, the script; it's all absolute garbage.
The movie its basically Rednecks in Space. They should've named the two shuttles the "General" and the "Lee". It was anti-city slickers cliche multiplied: 'you book smart folks don't know about nothin and nobody so you just move to the side and let us good old country folks...drill a whole into a massive asteroid in space and deploy a nuclear weapon to save the Earth, like gramps used to do!'
That last paragraph doesn't do the movie justice. The beginning of the film is all about Harry complaining about how nobody respects him and his crew for doing a tough job where you get dirty. The rest of the film is Harry and his crew disrespecting EVERYONE else for doing their job. From portraying all the intelligent people at NASA as pencil pushing nerds, to portraying Asian investors like kids in a messy Nickelodeon ride, to portraying one of Harry's
geologists (Buscemi - a man who thinks getting money from a loan shark just so he can have
clothed slippers rub up against him is a great investment, who then questions the propulsion and space experts as NASA) as smart, even downplaying and insulting a seasoned life time astronaut who managed to land one of the shuttles on a wildly rotating asteroid in the middle of a massive asteroid storm, calling him a fool because he missed the designated landing zone by only 26 miles. The only thing missing would be if the asteroid space vehicles used were pick up trucks, and somehow one of their hound dogs comes along with them.
This is how the film actually is a precursor of our time. Nothing sizes up Trump supporters bitter hatred of the modern book smart individual than Armageddon. Nothing better encompasses the modern port a potty scrubber's resentment and frustration with how their life has ended up then their praying someday NASA might call on them to save the planet form a dirty port a potty asteroid. 'My life isn't turning out how I planned, but instead of changing it myself, I'll just marinate in my disappointment, hoping I get to prove to everyone I was the smart one for not making my life better!' Isn't that every gun kooks fantasy, to try to stop a school shooter or terrorist group with their gun, showing the world they were the right all along? And the beginning of the film is a great representation of our modern Right wing Christian, when Harry is golfing golf balls at Greenpeace boats, hitting people, and then screaming "Stop whining, I gave you money." The modern Republican Christian validates their anger and hatred at the poor and hungry by saying "I gave money to my church, hence I've earned the right to insult you poors."
Armageddon IS the modern Republican, how they perceive themselves, unintentionally emphasizing the ambivalence to how wrong they are, and how much of jackass they can be!
There's a brief moment of light when Harry blows himself up on the asteroid to save Earth (oops, spoiler alert), but it's not enough. This movie is atrocious. It makes you long for a planet killing astronomical event.
