Armageddon |  | Director: Michael Bay
Actors: Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Will Patton
Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Touchstone
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.99
Buy Used: $2.00
as of 3/21/2010 02:20 EDT details
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Rating:  1265 reviews
Sales Rank: 1599
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Widescreen
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 150 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.2
MPN: DISD15639D
ISBN: 1558909001
UPC: 717951000842
EAN: 9781558909007
ASIN: B00000G3PA
Theatrical Release Date: July 1, 1998
Release Date: January 5, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com essential video
The latest testosterone-saturated blow-'em-up from producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay (The Rock, Bad Boys) continues Hollywood's millennium-fueled fascination with the destruction of our planet. There's no arguing that the successful duo understands what mainstream American audiences want in their blockbuster movies--loads of loud, eye-popping special effects, rapid- fire pacing, and patriotic flag waving. Bay's protagonists--the eight crude, lewd, oversexed (but lovable, of course) oil drillers summoned to save the world from a Texas-sized meteor hurling toward the earth--are not flawless heroes, but common men with whom all can relate. In this huge Western-in-space soap opera, they're American cowboys turned astronauts. Sci-fi buffs will appreciate Bay's fetishizing of technology, even though it's apparent he doesn't understand it as anything more than flashing lights and shiny gadgets. Smartly, the duo also tries to lure the art-house crowd, raiding the local indie acting stable and populating the film with guys like Steve Buscemi, Billy Bob Thornton, Owen Wilson, and Michael Duncan, all adding needed touches of humor and charisma. When Bay applies his sledgehammer aesthetics to the action portions of the film, it's mindless fun; it's only when Armageddon tackles humanity that it becomes truly offensive. Not since Mississippi Burning have racial and cultural stereotypes been substituted for characters so blatantly--African Americans, Japanese, Chinese, Scottish, Samoans, Muslims, French ... if it's not white and American, Bay simplifies it. Or, make that white male America; the film features only three notable females--four if you count the meteor, who's constantly referred to as a "bitch that needs drillin'," but she's a hell of a lot more developed and unpredictable than the other women characters combined. Sure, Bay's film creates some tension and contains some visceral moments, but if he can't create any redeemable characters outside of those in space, what's the point of saving the planet? --Dave McCoy
Amazon.com
The latest testosterone-saturated blow-'em-up from producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay (The Rock, Bad Boys) continues Hollywood's millennium-fueled fascination with the destruction of our planet. There's no arguing that the successful duo understands what mainstream American audiences want in their blockbuster movies--loads of loud, eye-popping special effects, rapid- fire pacing, and patriotic flag waving. Bay's protagonists--the eight crude, lewd, oversexed (but lovable, of course) oil drillers summoned to save the world from a Texas-sized meteor hurling toward the earth--are not flawless heroes, but common men with whom all can relate. In this huge Western-in-space soap opera, they're American cowboys turned astronauts. Sci-fi buffs will appreciate Bay's fetishizing of technology, even though it's apparent he doesn't understand it as anything more than flashing lights and shiny gadgets. Smartly, the duo also tries to lure the art-house crowd, raiding the local indie acting stable and populating the film with guys like Steve Buscemi, Billy Bob Thornton, Owen Wilson, and Michael Duncan, all adding needed touches of humor and charisma. When Bay applies his sledgehammer aesthetics to the action portions of the film, it's mindless fun; it's only when Armageddon tackles humanity that it becomes truly offensive. Not since Mississippi Burning have racial and cultural stereotypes been substituted for characters so blatantly--African Americans, Japanese, Chinese, Scottish, Samoans, Muslims, French ... if it's not white and American, Bay simplifies it. Or, make that white male America; the film features only three notable females--four if you count the meteor, who's constantly referred to as a "bitch that needs drillin'," but she's a hell of a lot more developed and unpredictable than the other women characters combined. Sure, Bay's film creates some tension and contains some visceral moments, but if he can't create any redeemable characters outside of those in space, what's the point of saving the planet? --Dave McCoy
Product Description
AFTER NEW YORK CITY IS DAMAGED BY HUNDREDS OF SMALL METEORITES, NASA DISCOVERS AN ASTEROID IS ON A COLLISON COURSE WITH EARTH. THEY RECRUIT THE BEST DEEP CORE DRILLER IN THE WORLD, HARRY STAMPER, TO TRAIN ASTRONAUTS WHO WILL GO TO THE ASTEROID, DRILL INTO THE CENTER AND DETONATE A NUCLEAR WARHEAD.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 1265
 Fun, but I'm Putting My Foot Down For This One 50% March 17, 2010
Quentin Tarantino Fan (nowhere)
If you know some of my other reviews, I don't hate Michael Bay. I am the ONLY nitpicky film fan in the world who considers Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen one of his favorite movies, and I don't get impressed by many movies. Armageddon is good for matinee fun, and it's an entertaining blockbuster at first glance. However, even though I could easily just turn off my brain completely, with it's glaring problems, there's no way I'm going to let it slide. I'm putting my foot down on a movie that is good entertainment.
Make no mistake, Armageddon is a fun movie. Bay once again shows his cutting edge visual style (for 1998, anyway), and the plot itself is fine. There are some memorable moments in this movie. The training scene set to Sweet Emotion is great, and space itself looks great. The launch scene is cool, and Bay once agian has plenty of cool space and military equipment on screen. Unlike Emmerich, who often has a problem (I don't dislike Emmerich though) making characters likeable in any way (it's kind of bad when I don't care about my favorite actor), the characters here really aren't that annoying, even though there not that memorable. Bay's directing style is great, with cool establishing shots, extreme slow motion, and a good knack for displaying great looking images of structures and places.
The action sequences here are great to watch, as it has plenty of carnage done Bay style. Many people critize Bay for cutting too fast, but really, for me, it's more energetic and rollercoaster like, not confusing. Many people say that his movies make no sense in the action scenes, but close inspection shows that they are, while sometimes hard to follow, not THAT hard to follow. They flow better than expected, and unless you spend most time pondering each frame, well don't. Surprisingly, the aestroids sound kind of weak, but they certainly make some great looking destruction. The jaw dropping scenes where Paris goes up in Rubble is a BIG highlight. I thought Deep Impact had better meteor sequences, but Armageddon is loud and fun, as long as you don't think of why it's happening.
So when it comes to entertaining blockbusters, Armageddon is a great movie. It has action, great visuals courtsey of Bay, a relatable plot, and a healthy dose of Americana, not exactly always a bad thing even though it's often robbed for commericial purposes (Bay actually has a love for Americana, so it's a bit easier to believe from Bay than it is from Proctor and Gambol). A little hammy at times, but reasonably enteratining. All well and good, except for one important thing.
IT'S INSULTING. Tt's the massive plot holes and disregards for science that really miffs me, pretty much ruining the whole thing. Suspension of disbelief is fine, but suspension of science is another thing. Even movies like 2012 don't necessarily bend science TOO much (then again, it's just a movie). Armageddon, on the other hand, has such a disregard for science it's insulting for the viewer. He's basically asking us to believe and swallow all of this, no questions asked. According to NASA, there are a total of 168 things that are impossible (not counting potential plot holes) regardindg science. As a matter of fact, this movie is a training tool for NASA management training program, did you know that? NASA tests their recruits by asking them to identify as many scientifically inaccuracies as they can.
Get the gist? The movies' science is elevated to Ed Wood, only done with a budget of 150 million dollars. Only it takes itself way too seriously. And without none of the charms of Ed. Ed Wood maybe had an excuse. Bay doesn't. If the movie wasn't this inaccurate, I would enjoy it a lot more. But it isn't. Therefore, I have to put my foot down for this one. Armageddon is just too insulting to be considered anything more than average.
As for logic? Oh boy, where' the fun in this one? Ho hum! Well, okay. Nevermind. Well, let me just end with this quote right now, not necessarily exactly said as so.
Ben Affleck: [Wouldn't it be easier for NASA to train astronauts how to drill rather than training drillers to be astronoauts?]
Michael Bay: [Shut up, Ben]
Armageddon is a reasonably fun movie, but as Roger Ebert said for his review of Emmerich's big stinker Godzilla, "You have to absorb such a film, not consider it. But my brain rebelled, and instead applied logic where it was not welcome". There's just too much bull______ here that I just can't respect this movie as Bay-inspired fun. Sorry, Bay, stick to alien robots, unfunny buddy cops, cloning, and skin eating diseases. Leave science alone. 168 impossible things in one movie is not acceptable.
One last thing. Michael Clarke Duncan dancing around in underwear gets my vote for most disturbing and eye-ball gouge worthy scene of the 90's.
ACTION 8/10
DIRECTING AND STYLE 16/20
CHARACTERS 5/10
PLOT 6/10
Plot Holes 0/5
SCIENTIFIC INACCURACIES 0/10
 Confounds the question: How stupid can you get? March 13, 2010
Derek Grimmell (Clinton, IA USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is an abominable mess of a movie. Earth seems doomed when astronomers discover a 500-mile wide asteroid hurtling toward us. In a plan worthy of Wile E. Coyote, an oil-drilling crew that is as violent as a Chicago street gang will save the planet by flying up in a Shuttle, landing on said meteor, drilling an 800-foot (!) hole, and inserting a nuclear warhead, which will blow that bad boy in two, so that half skims past Earth on each side. Along the way they have many chances for snappy tough-guy dialogue, Olympic-level gymnastics, blasting away with truck-mounted machine guns, flashing their leopard-print underwear, bulling through the forces of Nature by raw grit and determination, and oh Lord why am I going on? Insultingly stupid, ridden with cliches, and larded with an embarrassing excuse for patriotism that is nothing but cynical bait thrown at the feet of the most foolish and gullible of ticket-buyers.
And will someone explain to us all just why the bleeping gosh-darn blankety heck you bring a TRUCK MOUNTED MACHINE GUN TO AN UNINHABITED ASTEROID? Or why an 800-foot-deep hole somehow gives you the edge on busting up a 500-MILE-wide asteroid? Or how any nuclear warhead, even the 100-megaton beast that only the Soviets ever had, would even make a dent in a 500-mile-wide asteroid, whose gravity alone would probably make the pieces separate by about a hundred feet and then come right back together? Oh, but Bruce Willis really means business! No asteroid would DARE!
From an industry that has never been long on respect for its customers' intelligence, this film ranks as among the largest and most viscous gobs of phlegm ever spit into the face of the viewing public. Every person involved in its production should receive at least two of the bullets in the head that its viewers so desperately craved while it was running. I don't care if this DVD has special effects worthy of Norse mythology, bonus features including a free cure for leprosy, or a solid-gold manhole cover dangling from it on a chain: the movie itself is so vile as to bankrupt the English language's power to describe. In a life made up of only 600,000 hours, no one, not even Death Row inmates, should be forced to spend two of them watching this Lovecraftian monstrosity.
One of the most entertaining fables March 9, 2010
Carlos Donoso Kronfle (Miami, Florida)
If you want to see a movie with loud action, awesome special effects and pure destruction (even though it's content is absurd) this is the movie for you. I might warn you, there are some real cheesy scenes that might make your eyes bleed.
I am no astronaut, nor do I work for NASA or even worse ever read a book about space, and yet I found load of things when I saw this in the movies 12 years ago that it was impossible for it to happen, but yet since it is for entertainment purposes I tried not to care much for it. The asteroid shower being all of a sudden unexpected in the beginning of the film can be an insult to moviegoers IQ and the fact that you have to drill in a huge asteroid -supposedly the size of Texas- a warhead in order to destroy `the bitch' might be as well too fiction, but in the long run it is a typical blockbuster film and not a documentary from the Discovery Channel.
Filled with a fun cast and special effects that are still fresh `til this date, Armageddon might be the movie you need to watch whenever you want to see a movie that contains any of the following items from my first sentence. The writers of the movie are the ones to blame for the illogical sequences mention (and those are just a few) but I found the directing by Michael Bay quite impressive.
TOP 10 WORST EVER! March 1, 2010
Movieskinny (Chico,CA)
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
This movie epitomizes the literary phrase "Suspension of Disbelief", which means absolutely preposterous. That doesn't always mean terrible. This movie has one of the craziest and most implausible plot points in movie history. They get great actors to sound excited about the perils and pitfalls of drilling into the hardest metal imaginable on an asteroid headed for earth. The U.S. Space Shuttles can barely reenter our own atmosphere without pieces falling off of it. YET, they manage to land on an asteroid that makes Moab in Utah look like a safe haven for supersonic touchdowns. I'm going to ask my physics professor buddy about the actual effects of explosions or A-bomb explosions in an atmosphere of no oxygen.
This was my number #2 bad movie of all time until I rented a wacky space drama with NO movie stars at the Red Box machine, and the previous renter even wrote "This is the worst movie ever" right on the disc, it was. This movie entry gets knocked down to a tie with Day After Tomorrow as the third worst ever. Without really good actors here, I guarantee you that no one would ever have given Armageddon more than one star. It is ONLY star driven, and NOT a plot driven movie. If you call it a popcorn movie deluxe, better add in plenty of cocktails with that buttery treat, and a good nap before it is over. Reviewers and fans hate giving movies bad reviews that have good actors being caught in bad movies, because they have done good or great movies. Billy Bob, Willis, Buscemi, Duncan, and more stars, have made classic movies in their own right.
The number three worst ever, I'm watching it right now, until something better falls on my head, Day After Tomorrow. Fun scenes of diaster in 5.1 sound, but ridiculously unbelieveable. You ask, what is the worst, The Core. Same scenario, great actors doing scenes that you couldn't dream up in a million years. In fact, you can't give any movie a "NO STARS" review at Amazon, and Armageddon deserves it too. The sequel to Armageddon could be called, Moon Apocalypse; One Million Nukes! AND starring Russel Crowe so someone will buy a ticket. LOL.
 Pretty Good... February 28, 2010
R. Patterson (Havertown, PA United States)
Again - don't let the movie snobs fool you; this is a really good flick. I am excited to see (and hear) this on Blu-Ray. Armageddon is easily this is one of the best action flicks of the 1990's and will take any viewer back decades to old science fiction stories of the 1950's and 60's found in movies and comics. It really is traditional story telling in its purest form. It contains the perfect mix of humor, action and suspense. Is this film deserving of an Academy Award? Well, no...but it is a good flick for a boring Friday or Saturday night! Enjoy...
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1265
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