`ARMAGEDDON' IS HERE.Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic This summer's second big-space-rock-aims-for-Earth adventure, ``Armageddon,'' is markedly noisier and stupider than ``Deep Impact.'' Yet this one seems to understand what it is - the party version of the end of the world - far better than the much-too-polite ``Impact'' grasped what it really was - a bad soap opera soap opera Broadcast serial drama, characterized by a permanent cast of actors, a continuing story, tangled interpersonal situations, and a melodramatic or sentimental style. with philosophical pretensions. I'll take the movie that knows it's a demo derby any day of the week, which is not to say that ``Armageddon'' is all dumb fun. It's dumb about its supposedly dramatic moments, too, which are inevitably either too long, too repetitive or too unintentionally campy (or all three at once). But while this gives the film some serious pacing problems, there's no denying that ``Armageddon'' also offers up so much action, humor, spectacle and, well, noise that it comes within near-miss range of true extravaganza status. You want cool destruction? A cluster of small, preliminary rocks - the approaching Big Mama Big Mama might be:
New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. in a few minutes than Godzilla managed to in his whole movie (summer travel advisory: If movies at all inspire copycat behavior, stay away from the Chrysler Building). And that's just a few early, teaser teaser an animal used to sexually tease but not to impregnate the members of the opposite sex. Usually males and they may be surgically prepared to ensure that they cannot mate or are not fertile. scenes. The president is freaked. NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. honcho Honcho A slang term describing the leader or person in charge of an organization. Notes: The CEO of a company could be referred to as the honcho or "head honcho." See also: CEO, CFO, COO, Insider, Leprechaun Leader Dan Truman (Billy Bob Thornton) calls his best brains together. The consensus: ``Basically, the worst parts of the Bible,'' one of several great lines a small army of screenwriters sprinkled through the proceedings. So far, so cool. But the idiocy IDIOCY, med. jur. That condition of mind, in which the reflective, or all or a part of the affective powers, are either entirely wanting, or are manifested to the least possible extent. 2. Idiocy generally depends upon organic defects. factor goes up a few notches when it's determined that the only hope for mankind rests with one Harry S. Stamper (Bruce Willis), a deep-core drilling expert who likes to lob golf balls at Greenpeace activists and take shotgun blasts at the partner ``who's like a son to me,'' A.J. Frost (``Good Will Hunting's'' Ben Affleck) - on a mid-Pacific oil rig, no less! - because A.J. and Harry's daughter, Grace (Liv Tyler), have been sleeping together. Harry's also got a band of indispensable yahoos without whom he's just not going to be able to stop the asteroid. Among them are a genius geologist who's also something of a pedophile pedophile Forensic psychiatry A person with pedophilia; there are an estimated 500,000 pedophiles in the world. See Child prostitution, Megan's law, Pedophilia. (Steve Buscemi), a reliable foreman but deadbeat dad (Will Patton), and some really big guys (Ken Campbell, Michael Duncan) who do, well, something indispensable. They and the rest of Harry's crew enjoy cutting up during a too-long astronaut-training crash course, while A.J. and Grace get to profess their titanically eternal love, and Harry promises to come back for his daughter. As you may have guessed, Grace isn't going into space. Tyler's job consists mainly of staying on the verge On the Verge (or The Geography of Yearning) is a play written by Eric Overmyer. It makes extensive use of esoteric language and pop culture references from the late nineteenth century to 1955. of tears and making sure her hair looks great blowing in the wind against more red, white and blue backdrops than NBC NBC in full National Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. commercial broadcasting company. It was formed in 1926 by RCA Corp., General Electric Co. (GE), and Westinghouse and was the first U.S. company to operate a broadcast network. tricked up for the last Summer Olympics. When the men's work finally gets under way, it's pretty nonstop. The two shuttles carrying our rowdy heroes barely escape from an exploding Russian space station, one doesn't survive entry through scads of asteroid debris, the one that does land safely keeps breaking drill bits, things fall and explode all over the place, the NASA pilots can't be trusted, some guys die, some go nuts, some sacrifice needs to be made ... and, oh yeah, nothing they do can, tsk tsk, save France. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke" put differently , a lot of what you saw in ``Deep Impact,'' only megatons more of the good stuff. In still other words, ``Armageddon'' is indeed the creature of Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay, the producer-director team responsible for ``The Rock,'' which means the soundtrack is so loud that it drowns out half the dialogue anyway. And which also means that you're not missing a thing because you can't hear it. Amazingly, there are well-acted set-pieces and lots of good, tense confrontational scenes amid all the sound and fury. And even the broader, maudlin maud·lin adj. Effusively or tearfully sentimental: "displayed an almost maudlin concern for the welfare of animals" Aldous Huxley. See Synonyms at sentimental. moments have a certain emotional tug, given that life on Earth is at stake and all. ``Armageddon'' is anything but a thoughtful or well-constructed action film, but for the kind of high-tech kitchen-sink contraption it's intended to be, it's got all the bells and whistles A slang English term for exceptional features in some product. In the computer field, it typically refers to functions in software that may be greatly appreciated by some users, even though they may not be necessary most of the time. you could possibly want. And all of them blow at full blast. THE FACTS The film: ``Armageddon'' (PG-13; violence, language, sex). The stars: Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Will Patton, Peter Stormare and Steve Buscemi. Behind the scenes: Directed by Michael Bay. Written by Jonathan Hensleigh, J.J. Abrams, Tony Gilroy, Shane Salerno and Robert Roy Pool. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Gale Anne Hurd and Michael Bay. Released by Touchstone Pictures. Running time: Two hours, 22 minutes. Playing: Citywide. Our rating: Three Stars. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: In ``Armageddon,'' the world gets an early warning about the giant asteroid headed for Earth when a series of smaller rocks wreak havoc on Manhattan. |
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