The Least Convincing Space Movie Ever

In 1998 two different films about rocks coming at Earth from space were released: Armageddon, the overblown action movie for dude-bro auteur Michael BayStarting off as an intern for George Lucas, and then moving up to directing commercials and music videos, Bay eventually got his break in film showcasing an ability to blend direction, editing, and special effects to create absolutely thrilling films., and Deep Impact, the respectable sci-fi film and airs of being a big drama, directed by Mimi Leder. Deep Impact was the film everyone thought would be the big winner at the Box Office, while Armageddon was big and dumb and wildly stupid, so of course it blasted Deep Impact out of the water, making $200 Mil more. No one can resist the allure of Michael Bay, apparently.

My dad was, quite literally, a rocket scientist. When both of these films came out, he saw both of them. In a conversation about the films he looked at me and said, “scientifically speaking, Armageddon is the more realistic movie.” I was dumbfounded by this, and I think he was being more than a little sarcastic (as was his way), but there was one basic truth to the comparison: the Earth is far more likely to get hit by an asteroid, and have it be a world-killing event (as depicted in Armageddon), than the chance it could be hit by a comet, let alone have it end the world (as shown in Deep Impact). On that one, single front, Armageddon gets something right.

But, when you watch the film, there is absolutely no way to take anything that happens in Armageddon seriously. It is disreputable, low-rent, mindless trash. None of the science in the film makes any sense, everything is directed to look cool and not be realistic, and the film spends most of its time looking for action when focusing on the plot might have helped. It is a long, sloggy, over-the-top film about blue collar dudes saving the world, and it is quintessential Michael Bay. Back when the film came out, everyone was all about Armageddon, but now, going back to the film nearly 30 years later, the only word I have for it is: insufferable.

It’s a perfectly normal day in New York when, suddenly, meteors fall out of the sky, blasting the city’s streets to bits. A lone observer of the night sky, using his homemade telescope on his farm, discovers there’s a massive asteroid, the size of Texas, headed right for Earth. The team at NASA, headed by Dan Truman (Billy Bob Thornton), realizes that if something isn’t done to break apart and redirect the massive space rock, all life on Earth will be obliterated. So the team comes up with a solution: go to the asteroid, drill a hole deep into it, set a nuke, and blow the asteroid into two halves that will each pass by one die of the Earth, saving the world.

There’s only one small problem with this: the NASA team of astronauts can’t get the drilling rig they’re using to work properly. Truman calls in Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis), the best damn oil driller in the world. The rig they’re using is actually Harry’s patented design, originally co-opted by NASA for drilling on Mars. But now they need Harry to fix it and get the astronauts ready to go drill on the space rock. Stamper says no, though. “You can’t learn drilling, you have to live it.” He calls in his crew of misfits and weirdos – Ben Affleck as A.J., Will Patton as Chick, Steve Buscemi as Rockhound, Owen Wilson as Oscar, Ken Campbell as Max, and Michael Clarke Duncan as Bear – to come work the two rigs with him so they can drill the hole and blow this asteroid to dust.

When you watch this film, one thing is made very clear: Michael Bay hates smart people. Bay was, by this point, already established in his way of filmmaking. Between Bad Boys and The Rock, Bay had revealed the kind of glossy, high-contrast, dynamic filmmaking that would become his hallmark. Hell, The Rock is in the Criterion Collection. Bay has a way of filming things that makes them look very pretty and undeniably cool. But at every turn in this film, Bay makes his personal politics clear: he thinks the military is awesome and that guns and weapons and explosions are very cool, but he also hates anything smart. Science is dumb and you gotta go with your gut. Scientists are eggheads and you should ignore them, instead relying on the vibes of blue collar, down home men. And, no matter what, ignore anything smart if it gets in the way of what’s cool.

From the very start, the film ignores any and all science. The entire plot is so stupid that it’s hard to even call this film “sci-fi”, this despite people going up into space on secret government space shuttles to save the world from an asteroid. The very premise is ludicrously dumb as there is no way a single nuke drilled 800 feet into an asteroid the size of Texas would be able to blow it in half to save the Earth, not even if you put it on a “fault line”. Which, let’s be clear, asteroids don’t have complex fault systems. And you can’t blow an asteroid apart when it’s closer to the Earth than the Moon and expect the world to just… be okay. None of this works.

These are the big issues, of course, but we could also nitpick the small things, like how the space shuttles don’t fly realistically. How space shuttles aren’t designed for any kind of flight at all (being more like controlled gliders), especially not from the surface of a massive asteroid. How an asteroid, at the size described in the movie, wouldn’t have the right level of gravity for workers to pull off this complex plan. Nothing about this film makes any logical sense if you even think for a single second about the science. It’s all incredibly dumb.

The movie doesn’t care about any of that, of course. Instead constantly pushing forward so you ignore everything stupid about it. And, hell, that’s fine if the movie can at least be entertaining. This, however, is where the film really falls apart because, no, the film is not fun or enjoyable. In every scene, every act of the film, I was utterly bored. The film doesn’t have a story, it has people going through motions towards a goal without any actual plot development. It doesn’t have characters, it has actors playing roles with single, identifiable ticks that are meant to replace actual character development. Everyone is insufferable and annoying and so assured of their greatness that you end up hating all of them. Nothing in this film works.

But it is pretty. Whatever else you can say about the film, on a technical level the film is really cool to look at. This is the kind of film where if you turn off the volume and study the shots, the compositions, the lighting, you can have a feast for the eyes. Michael Bay knows his way around a camera and he can create some of the most stylish, dynamic, and interesting shots you’ll ever find in blockbuster filmmaking. Again, there’s a reason why he has films in the Criterion Collection. The man has an eye for this shit. I just wish, in the case of Armageddon, he could have put all of that into a good movie that was worth investing in.

This is a bad movie that came out at the right place and time. Independence Day had come out just two years early and started a massive run of “the Earth is doomed” films. And Michael Bay had just seen two hits with Bad Boys and The Rock. Having this director on a film with this on-the-nose of a title, when everyone was primed for explosions and seeing the world get blowed up good? Yeah, there was no way this film could fail. People turned out in droves for it and Bay because the hit director everyone wanted on this next blockbuster film.

But that doesn’t make this a movie worth watching. Armageddon now is a film where you sit there saying, “wait, people loved this shit?” They did, to the tune of over $500 Mil at the Box office. It was a massive smash hit (emphasis on smash considering the content of this film) and made Bay a household name. But the film has faded from memory and people don’t talk about it as much anymore, and when you go to watch the film you can see exactly why: this film really blows.