Sparks, noise, vibrations and explosions!
Shouting, running, screaming, fighting!
Fire, tremors, crashes and collisions! In the movie Armageddon, who are the evil ones? They are thousands of rocks led by an asteroid the size of Texas that threatens to extinguish life on Earth? And who are the good ones? They are a motley makeshift group of old-drillers who will risk their lives in a daring rocket journey to save the world. A few NASA astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut are also thrown in to help steer the two shuttle spacecrafts. So these are the heroes of the movie. But, except for rig owner and drilling expert Harry Stamper (played excellently by Bruce Willis), the oil workers are moonlighting criminals. Mobsters as saviors? Is this any way to improve the moral fabric of our country? You would think that a movie about the extinction of life on Earth would be serious. Not so. The best description of Armageddon is an action-adventure film sprinkled with comedy. Every effort is made to excite and entertain. No effort is made to educate or inform. Scientific accuracy is tossed out the window. The laws of physics are continually violated in order to maximize the drama. What happened to the good old movie classics that tried to teach us something about life? It is amazing that the asteroid is able days in advance to send warning signals consisting of deadly meteor showers. The first one strikes a space station orbiting the Earth. The craft is drilled with holes before exploding. The next attack is on New York City. It is pelted with huge meteorites. The Chrysler Building is decapitated, while the City is decimated. Several days later, Shanghai falls victim. And near the end of the movie, Paris is destroyed by an asteroid fragment. This is one of the few places where a realistic image of an impact is portrayed. The explosion produces a cloud of dust that surges outward. Paris is totaled. Only a huge crater and the