|
||||||||||
 ArmageddonHere's my impression of a Michael Bay film. Okay, ready?
I used to have a theory that directors Michael Bay (The Rock, Bad Boys), Tony Scott (Crimson Tide, Top Gun, True Romance) and Simon West (Con Air) were all the same person. They were all actually pseudonymns for producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who is the real director behind these movies. But I can't say that anymore because Michael Bay definitely has his own "look," even if it means making two and a half hour movies that look like TV commercials. They're slick, edited at lightning speed, and really, really pretty. But not all that good for you.
Armageddon is the second of the Big Rock movies this summer, and will likely make more money than its predecessor Deep Impact. That's unique, because when two movies come out with similar ideas, the first one to hit the market is usually the winner (for example, Speed blew away Blown Away, Dante's Peak wiped out Volcano). In the long run, though, I think Deep Impact will win the war, because it had heart. But I'll get to the differences between those two movies later. The opening sequence to Armageddon (They probably could have called this movie The Rock II: The Really Big Rock) was certainly an eye opener. A meteor shower hits New York and practically pins you to the back wall with death and desctruction. It's also one of the most visually stunning demolition scenes ever, easily outdoing the New York wipeout scene in Independence Day (To add insult to injury to ID4 director Roland Emmerich, they also took a not so subtle pot shot at his most recent monster movie). Once NASA spots the Big Rock on the horizon, director Dan Truman (the always enjoyable Billy Bob Thornton) gets the idea that in order to prevent this meteor from hitting earth and putting an end to mankind as we know it, they need to drill to its core and nuke it from the inside. That's where the oil rig team headed by Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) comes in. And despite being the best at what they do, what a crew of misfits they are. NASA's getting nervous. There's a romantic subplot involving Stamper's daughter Grace (Liv Tyler), who's been dating Stamper's loose cannon but good driller AJ (Ben Affleck). I was worried this would dominate the movie, as the Titanic-like ads suggested. Fortunately, it doesn't. Bay's too busy with other things that make more noise. In fact, this movie never stopped once to take a breath. Bay doesn't seem to realize that sometimes less is more. When AJ is about to go on the space mission and he has some last quiet time with Grace, the best thing they could have done is kill the music. Well, they killed ex-Yes guitarist Trevor Rabin's score, but they turned up the new Aerosmith single instead. A delicate moment, crushed under the weight of shifting units of the soundtrack. For the first hour or so, I was having a ball watching this. When the drillers are going through the NASA physical tests and psychiatric exams, it's a great sequence. These guys are truly nuts, and since they know the government has no other options, they can act any way they want. It was very funny, and exhilirating to watch. I was thinking to myself, "This movie is going to be huge." And then they lost me. Once they get into space, the movie requires MASSIVE suspension of disbelief. And I'm not talking 'dangling from helicopter pulling wife out of flaming limo about to go off a bridge' suspension. When they land on the meteor, it just gets silly. And I can take silly (look no further than From Dusk Til Dawn to see how much I like silly), but Bruckheimer's movies are so drenched with self importance that they demand you take this seriously. And I just couldn't. One thing Armageddon does that ID4 skipped was demolish some international cities as well. But I got the impression that these scenes were thrown in because the filmmakers knew the audience's interest was waning so they needed to give them another shot of action. One of the cities they destroyed, however, looked like it was filmed at Epcot, and since this movie was made by Disney, that may be exactly where they filmed it. Thornton is the heart of this movie, and as a result turns in the best performance (Very unlike him to do a big budget action movie. They must have handed him a big check). Bruce Willis starts off acting like Die Hard's John McClane and spends the second half brooding like The Jackal. Buscemi gets the best lines and makes the most of them until the two hour mark, where he started to bug me (Picture Ren Hoek in the Ren & Stimpy episode Space Madness. And now that I think about it, he could PLAY Ren in a live action Ren & Stimpy movie, God forbid)). Affleck and Tyler, well, those parts were pretty nondescript. The second best performance for me was Peter Stormare, the silent thug who introduced Steve Buscemi to the wood chipper in Fargo, as a loony Russian astronaut who works, alone, at the space station where the crew refuels en route to The Rock. As far as bang for your buck go, I doubt there will be a movie that provides more than Armageddon. But it's all smoke and mirrors, a force full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Deep Impact, while it didn't have half the money shots Armageddon did, had a soul to it, and that is the reason that movie was such a surprise success. I also think, while Michael Bay may be a better director, Impact director Mimi Leder is a better storyteller, and story is very short on supply here. This will make money, but it's not going to be the $200 million smash the experts have predicted.
|
