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ARMAGEDDON – Trevor Rabin

July 1, 1998 Leave a comment

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

In the all-spectacle, no-brains world of the Hollywood summer blockbuster, Armageddon became the antithesis of everything that people find wrong with commercial film making. Even the title – “commercial” film making – smacks of financial return being held in higher esteem than artistic merit. Everyone hated it, from the critics at Cannes who laughed during the premiere, to the newspaper hacks who decried the banal dialogue, Bruce Willis’ wooden lead performance, and the glaring implausibilities in the plotline. Despite this, audiences loved it. For all its shortcomings, Armageddon was an out-and-out crowdpleaser, with genuinely spectacular special effects, plenty of action and romance and, in the shape of Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler, two cover-story attractive protagonists. Read more…