Every Time I Put In Armageddon...

I honestly only enjoy the "training" scenes. But it has been along time since I have seen this. Maybe I'll have a drunken night of Bay flicks soon and give it another chance.

Only Armageddon?

Bad Boys, Bad Boys II, The Rock

Bay has made some ridiculously fun and awesome movies. People might want to lump him in with the Joseph Kahn's or Simon West's but I think he's quite a notch above that troop.

Anyways, as for Armageddon, it kicks Deep Impact's ass all the way to the moon. The cast is fun as hell, the movie is just ridiculous enough to be really entertaining and the sugar is kinda endearing (for me, anyways). The "romance" between Ben and Liv and the father/son drama with Willis and Affleck is cheesy, but in a way that makes you think it's cute for trying instead of nauseating (like I said, for me).

Also, "This is how we fix problem in the Russian space station!" should be quoted more often.

I like to think that line was put in there specifically at the request of Will Patton, who probably could not get over the utter fucking ridiculousness of the script saying "And then Cap. America pulls a gun."

Every time I put in Armageddon...

I make sure to hide my Guitar Hero: Aerosmith as to have an explosion of Steven Tyler so near my valuable TV.


(I assume that it is the Criterion version of Armageddon...since the fact that it exists is awesome as well)

Totally man. Just that this flick didn't do much for me. But The Rock was like the 2nd blu-ray flick I picked up. I love that movie too much. And Bad Boys 2 is an underrated classic. And I'm deadly serious about that statement.

The Rock owns Armageddon. To whit:

"I'd take pleasure in guttin' you, boy. I'd take pleasure in guttin' you... boy." What is wrong with these people, huh? Mason? Don't you think there's a lot of, uh, a lot of anger flowing around this island? Kind of a pubescent volatility? Don't you think? A lotta angst, a lot of "I'm sixteen, I'm angry at my father" syndrome? I mean grow up! We're stuck on an island with a bunch of violence-for-pleasure-seeking psycophatic marines, SHAME-ON-THEM!"

Also:
"You've been around a lot of corpses. Is that normal?"
"What, the feet thing?"
"Yeah. The feet thing."
"It happens."
"Well I'm having a hard time concentrating. Can you do something about it."
"Like what, kill him again?"

And finally: Tony Todd

Armageddon is ass.

The Armageddon hate:

The Rock is a truly great film in that it takes numerous crazy situtions and by allowing the magic of Bay to smash them together, it makes sense. Although I would still put Con Air above both, I give Armageddon credit as being the beginning of Bay becoming more lady friendly. Armageddon features numerous items such as the love story that would be amped up in Pearl Harbor and the later films including Transformers, where Megan Fox rightly gets screen time and her "outsider" story arc is actually explained. Although many would like to break off a piece of Fox, there were no Animal Crackers in Transformers so Armageddon wins.

The Rock:

- Tony Todd
- Michael Biehn
- William Forsythe
- John C. McGinley
- John Spencer


Armageddon:

- Steve Buscemi
- William Fichtner
- Peter Stormare
- Keith David
- Udo Kier

*****

It's tough, man. It's tough.

Can't forget ol' Bokeem Woodbine on The Rock's side.

Apparently they also have Jesus Christ piloting a jet fighter. I did not know that.

I've seen The Rock more times than I can count. I've never seen Armaggeddon. The former wins!

Although not a Bay film, Face/Off is my go to movie for over-the-top ridiculousness.

He's certainly not got a stellar filmography, but I would rank Bay's films...

1. Bad Boys
2. The Island
3. The Rock
4. Transformers
5. Pearl Harbor
6. Armageddon

Armageddon really is unwatchable.

The Island? Way to destroy credibility right there, man.

Count me in the Armageddon camp. I've tried and tried and tried to enjoy The Rock, and I just can't do it. I don't know why. Apart from the car/tram chase. That kicks ass.

Look, this may be the first time in my life I've used this word, but anyone that likes Pearl Harbor more than Armageddon is a fag. I hope you can find enough time away from blowing dudes to explain yourself. Armageddon is the shit.

I can just imagine the consultants from NASA coming up with this semi-realistic Armadillo drilling vehicle, and then Bay enters the room "that looks good, now stick a 50mm minigun to that thing".

See, the problem with The Rock being part of this conversation is that it's actually a quantifiably GOOD action movie with a few shreds of dumb scattered here and there. Comparing it to the rest of Bay's resume is like comparing a bacon cheeseburger at Wendy's to anything on Patton Oswalt's version of the Black Angus menu.

Armageddon is shit (with the exception of Will Patton). Sure, they know it's dumb, but those are levels of dumbness that my mind can't deal with. Congratulations to all of you who can.

It's like chosing between being stabbed in the left or the right eye, but for all its ineptitude, at least Pearl Harbor looks like a real film. Armageddon gives me nightmares by the time they reach space, and apparently ran out of money. The meteor set looks like something that Ed Wood would have come up with on a particularly bad day.

I think most of us recognize that Michael Bay's films take place in this wonderful fantasy world where everything has the innate ability to explode and crumple like a sandwich in a 5th graders lunch box. This is a director who knows how to do two things: make things go boom, make it look pretty, and get a bunch of actors who know to have fun with the sheer unbridled insanity of it all. Constraining that director to rules, historical respect, accuracy, reverence, and poignancy does no one a favor, and there's the reason Pearl Harbor fails. It's giving a 1920 Rolls Royce Phantom 2 and a vintage 1865 Civil War pistol in a fancy red velvet lined box to an 8 year old who'd been playing with Super Soakers and just wrecked is third set of Hot Wheels about 10 minutes ago.

Steve Buscemi 's outtakes on the two disk version of Armageddon are some of the funniest ever..

That entire gag reel's awesome.

"I say we bring in Bruce Willis. The best deep-core driller of my ass."

Terrible, terrible movie. The first time I ever walked out feeling like I had experienced a cinematic headache. Bay's PG-13 efforts are the worst, because he can't indulge in the violence and mayhem full throttle, so he just makes it LOUD and increases the collateral damage, with performers who can't curse simply playing to the cheap seats.

I stayed with a family in Denmark after this film had come out, and they were planning to treat their American visitor with a visit to the movies, which they made annually. The last movie they saw was Titanic, so they asked me what was popular in America at that point, and I guessed, "Armageddon?" I ended up only going with their almost mute son, who was obsessed with terrible movies (had a whole night planned to catch the Danish TV premiere of "Who's Harry Crumb?") and loud stereo systems. We biked the whole way there, without him saying a word, and sat through the movie silently, where I finally remembered how aggressively unpleasant and ugly the movie was. Just relentless, unending nonsense. As we were leaving, he lit a cigarette and spoke the only words he said all evening, "God... that sucked."

At least we got this trailer... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMcJYEGHkXo

I'm surprised this discussion is even taking place here.

I like The Rock, but for me Armageddon is just awful- jingoistic, heavy-handed, not as funny as the filmmakers seem to think it is and (for me) lacks excitment. Oh, and it's so, so cheesy. That animal crackers scene is a good example of somebody trying to ape that Tarantino-syle talk and failing. Oh, and what a waste of an amazing cast.

On a similar note, after I took my (then) girlfriend to Transformers we had this exchange:

Me- God it was dumb.
Her- It was a film about robots from space that turn into cars! What did you expect?
Me- Even taking that into account, it was dumb.

Tati, first Staind now this!?

Just kidding man. I liked this flick when I was twelve because it had Bruce Willis and shit blowing up for no reason, but I can't even watch it now.

And I really, really hate that Aerosmith song.

While Bruce Willis Punches Asteroids is great, it pales in comparison to Nic Cage & The Adventures of Green Smoke. Thankfully I have the Criterion Collection versions of both, and now I will go do comprehensive studies on both films for further comparison later in the day.

Oh, forgot about that shitty song.

When the movie came out, I drunkenly kareoke'd that song for my girlfriend at the time, congested and sick, oblivious to the fact that she had been planning on picking that moment to break up with me. So it had to wait until after I murdered a terrible song.

Fuck you, Armageddon.

The song only makes it that much better.

Eric and I had the same idea. Watching The Rock now, Armageddon later, Bad Boys II much later.

So, is it sad that it's only since I've started watching Scrubs in the last year and a half or so that I've noticed John C. McGinley's been in fucking EVERYTHING?

It's not sad because you're probably having a better day after realizing that.

Yes.

Yes I am.

I haven't seen Transformers or the Island, but they do not invade Cuba in the last act of Armageddon. Advantage: Bad Boys II.

But this is one of those films that I know I shouldn't like, but can't help but like. I have the same reaction Tati does, although to be fair, I haven't seen it in years. The "space station" line is one I quote an awful lot, but I have also gotten a lot of mileage out of:

"You and your men are the biggest mistake in the HISTORY OF NASA!"
"This is wrong and you FUCKING know it."
"Russian parts, American parts, all made in TAIWAN!"

Bingo. I think one of the reasons Bay's movies continue to work is that he gets actors who can sell the material, even in something like Pearl Harbor. Armageddon has Thornton, Patton*, Fitchner, Wilson, and the smartest man on the planet, Jason Isaacs, all doing their damndest to make the material come off as just this side of plausible.

Oh, and the score over the President's speech and the Launch sequence is fantastic. The rest I can leave, but that bit is great.

*I'll admit that the scene where he goes to see his son is one that I like a lot in this. For a ridiculous movie, it does the emotional moments pretty well. The aformentioned scene with the kid as well as Fichners' moment at the end with Liv Tyler are the ones that *ahem* always get to me.

I don't understand the Bad Boy 2 praise, it's terrible just like the other Bay films, and the action is more of the same.

Bad Boys 2 is fun for what it is. It's not terrible. I think Bay catches a lot of extra flack for the spawn he produced, his only truly terrible movie with no value whatsoever is The Island.

For starters: THEY INVADE CUBA.

But beyond that, Bad Boys II is great for a number of reasons. At the time it came out, the action movie was in a state of transition, from the big-budget, blow everything up, not afraid to be R starlined actioneers of late 80s and 90s to the Bourne-based action and PG-13 ratings of today. It's also the last time that Bruckheimer and Bay worked together to date.

As such (and I can't believe I just said "and such" in a discussion of Bad Boys II), I think both men realized that the film they'd spent much of their careers making were on their way out. Pirates was probably in production around the same time and the first Bourne movie had already hit. And so the two guys decided to go out with not just your standard R-rated action flick, but a gloriously, offensively profane and sadistic orgy of devastation, climaxing not just with the Cuban invasion but the main villain getting shot in the head, then falling onto the land mine and exploding. I mean, come on.

Both guys have been enormously successful since then, with Transformers (which I need to see one of these days) and the Pirates movies and the CSI/Cold Case/Without A Trace CBS domination, but I think the most purest essence of what a Jerry Bruckheimer movie is and what a Michael Bay movie is exists in Bad Boys II. The Rock is probably their best movie together, but this is them at their most unfiltered.

Also, it represents, at least for me, the last gasp of the action movie -- not just the Rock and Armageddon and Con Air, but Die Hard and Face/Off -- that I grew up loving.

Plus: They INVADE CUBA.

It took me a long time to realize that this is an action movie about drilling.

Molt says it better than I ever could:

Dude, someone link me up! I've been trying to find the outtakes online for 45 minutes straight!

Wait are we thinking of the same film? My eyes are constantly in danger of rolling out of socket every time I attempt to watch this one.

I take my comment back.

After re-watching the film, I have to say, the psychotic attitudes, homophobic remarks, and rat sex makes Bad Boys 2 rival Troll 2 as one of the best sequels of all-time.

I know this is completely off-topic, but I'd like to direct someday. I'm sure some of you may too.

And while anyone who knows me knows I'd probably spend most of my career riffing on Woody Allen, Scorsese, Melville, Fellini, etc. etc., I would love nothing more than to be handed a briefcase with $100 million to go make the biggest love-letter to the big, loud, Brucky, pre-Bourne actioneR's that Bay's made. Then I'd happily go back to making $100,000 films no one would see about people who destroy their lives with petty affairs and destructive selfishness.

I have my whole career trajectory plotted out.

Everyone has at least ONE big, loud action film idea they'd like to do.

National Treasure 3: Cheney's Secret Vaults?

That scene with Bruce Willis telling Liv Tyler he ain't coming home?

If this movie catches me at just the right moment....Niagara fucking Falls.

My favorite parts of National Treasure 2:

1. Nic Cage's "WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!" when he holds the rock after Ed Harris points a gun at Voight.
2. Ed Harris' screaming death scene -- "TELL THEM I FOUND IT"
3. The fact that Bruce Greenwood plays the president, yet there is very little difference between his performance in this and his performance as JFK (except the accent). I like to think that National Treasure takes place in some bizarro universe where JFK was president in the 2000s rather than the 60s.
4. The ending with said president, ripped off from 'The Rock.'