ARMAGEDDON

INTRODUCTION: The biggest and badest of the summer's admittedly somewhat disappointing crop of blockbusters once again thrusts the Earth into the path of an on-coming Asteroid. Paving the way for a roller-coaster ride of thrills and effects which you would expect from messers Bruckheimer and Bay, the men responsible for the masterpiece of testosterone-driven action that is "The Rock".

Right from the start the magisterial tones of Heston, narrating the tale of Earth's last meteoric collision, prepare you for an epic of truly biblical proportions, albeit only "the worst bits of the bible". Make no mistake Armageddon is here.

SYNOPSIS: "Asteroid the size of Texas" is headed toward Earth and the only way to stop it is to plant a nuke in it. OK, so you've heard it all before, but here's the twist, instead of sending up Robert Duvall and a bunch of clean cut NASA types, the president instead chooses oil driller Harry Stamper (Willis) and his gang of misfit associates.

REVIEW: OK so it's "The Dirty Dozen" in space but originality has never exactly been the strong point of Hollywood action blockbusters. The strong point are effects and explosions, something this film has in spades. More happens in the first 5 minutes of "Armageddon" than happened in the entire 27 hour running time of "Deep Impact". Grand Central station is wiped out, the Chrysler building is cleaved in twain for the second time this summer, a Godzilla toy salesman gets his comeuppance and a small mutt is crushed. Actually I wasn't too keen on that last bit.

Among the plethora of landmarks destroyed this time round are the Eiffel Tower, Shanghai Harbour and curiously the Mir space station, a clear case of station envy from the Americans who never having managed one of their own, seem to spend a awful lot of media time taking pot-shots at Mir; old it may be but it has exceeded all expectations placed on it. Still the destruction allows the team to take a comedy Russian on board, played of course by an American, Buscemi's old "Fargo" sparring partner Stormare to be precise. This is not the only piece of racial stereotyping in this movie which is aimed squarely at middle America. The few shots of this global dilemma, shown outside the uptown Manhattan area, involve turbaned Indians gathering at the Taj Mahal and Italians on scooters outside a pavement cafe. And of course we have the standard intolerable levels of flag waving, including the now mandatory speech from the President of the USA, this time out played by Stanley Anderson. This fortunately fails to reach the levels of "Independence Day" as our heroes are not military types but rather blue-collar workers who are only doing this to get out of paying taxes.

Speaking of the meat props, insignificant as they are, they do a good job. Willis' performance apparently generated laughter at the showing of the 40 minute promo at Cannes, leaving the man with a head the size of Texas visibly squirming, but to be fair to him he doesn't do that bad a job of ageing gracefully in the lead role. The brilliant young Affleck demonstrates star qualities, Tyler provides the unnecessary post "Titanic" luurve interest and a supporting cast of familiar faces including the ubiquitous Thornton (the new Steve Buscemi) and Buscemi (the old Steve Buscemi) put in characteristically excellent performances.

Where the film really falls down is, rather unsurprisingly, the story, completely derivative, unimaginative with little witty or original to say, and of course containing more holes than our erstwhile heroes could drill in a lifetime. It is difficult to know where to lay the blame for this, the script supervisor Karen Golden, the script co-ordinators Karen Anderson and Kevin Cooper, the story by Robert Roy Pool and "The Rock" and "Con Air" scribe Jonathan Hensleigh, the adaptation by Tony Gilroy and Shane Salerno, the screen play by Jonathan Hensleigh and "Forever Young" scribe J.J. Abrams, the plethora of uncredited script doctors including the likes of Paul Attanasio, Robert Towne and Scott Rosenberg brought in to add their two-penneth to the mix, or the Hollywood system that allows this sort of script by committee to proceed.

The films saving graces are the backwards-ticking clocks, explosions and guns that Lizard praises so highly and the co-operation of NASA, providing enough hardware, locations and footage to please your most avid astro-phile. If you thought the product placement was overdone in "Godzilla" wait'll you get a load of this 2 hour commercial for U.S. Gov. Corp.

If you can forgive poor scripting, blatant flag-waving and ignorant racism then this is the kick-ass summer blockbuster for you.

Mutt's Rating: ****

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