Hard to think it’s been twenty years since 1998, isn’t it?
Unless you’re some young ‘un, in which case, let me give you some pointers.
Bill Clinton had gone from burger-munching goof to a Hillary-angering goof, the
internet was on the rise if still mostly making funny noises on the phone, CGI was
still new and funky, and we were looking forward to the upcoming release of The
Phantom Menace the following year. Ah, such naïve times when we thought that
poorly programmed computer clocks would be what would destroy the world. And
speaking of world destruction, that summer gave us not one, but two big budget
movies involving spectacular catastrophe by means of big ol’ space rock.
There had been asteroid films before, but they were mostly
boring and terrible—do you remember 1979’s Meteor, starring Sean Connery? No,
you don’t, because it was that sort of film that gave us long, loving shots of
model nuclear missiles flying through space, and then somehow falling down
because they ran out of fuel or something, because of course they do. Now, this
time around, Michael Bay intended to give us an interpretation of this scenario
with an all-star cast and rockin’ special effects, and Mimi Leder also wanted
to present a more emotive and dramatic experience, in the forms of Armageddon
and Deep Impact respectively.
Just for the hell of it, let’s give these two films a
comparison. Starting with the premises—and in that one, Deep Impact wins points
for scientific accuracy. Armageddon starts off with a giant asteroid (that looks
like something Pinhead would design to rub his back for some reason) the size
of Texas just 18 days away from impacting Earth. Yet NASA is the only one that
can see this gigantic monstrosity the size of a small moon, which, well,
suggests that everybody on the planet has trouble tilting their heads upwards.
Deep Impact, on the other hand, is much more grounded, taking place over the
span of a year or so, and features a more accurate depiction of space rocks, as
well as some cool real-life concepts of spacecraft, namely an Orion-type ship.
Armageddon, on the other hand, just goes ‘Science?
Pfftttttt’ and gives us X-wing like space shuttles crewed by a group of
roughnecks lead by Bruce Willis, with an actually fairly enjoyable cast
including Ben Affleck, Owen Wilson, Billy Bob Thornton, Peter Stromare, Keith
David, Steve Buscemi, and Steve Buscemi’s teeth. Bruce’s character in
particular is the world’s greatest oil driller, sent up to drill that son of a
bitch rock a new one, and apparently is so much of a big deal he can pretty
much have NASA kowtow to him and replace their crew of trained astronauts with
his motley crew of kooks and blue collar frat boys. Sticking a drill into the
ground and pressing the on button is an art, not a science, see.
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| "My fellow Americans, we are all about to die. I therefore invite FOX News to get down and kiss my ass." |
Deep Impact on the other hand has Morgan Freeman,
charismatic as ever, as the President of the United States (in the late 90s, a
black POTUS was considered a far off event as actual space travel would be),
Elijah Wood as one of the namesakes for the comet, and, well, that’s honestly
sort of it as memorable cast members go. Tea Leoni plays the main character of
a journalist, who just sort of ambles her way through the storyline. For the
most part, it’s fairly understated for a disaster movie, but things do pick up
in the last act, when the emotional story threads come together and the
disaster itself comes to a head, making things resonate decently well.
Armageddon, in the meantime, goes ‘fuck it, you guys want a
disaster movie? SPLOSIONS! SHUTTLES CRASHING! GATLING GUNS IN SPACE! EVIL
MILITARY GUYS! YOU LIKING THAT SHIT YET?!!’ Literally not a sequence can go without
baysplosions and insanity—refuelling their ships on the oddly unnamed Mir?
SPLOSIONS!! Trying to drill rock? SPLOSIONS! Honestly, especially in the third
act, it does start to get slightly tiresome, especially when things start blowing
up for literally no reason and I gave up trying to make sense of it all—but
it’s the charismatic cast that does make it at least somewhat watchable
(with the exception of Liv Tyler, who just spends most of the movie stroking
monitors and having comically terrible ‘romance’ parts with Affleck). Steve
Buscemi just ad-libbing and wise-assing his way through Bay’s load-blowing
alone elevates it beyond just plain unwatchable Transformers sequels. Bay in
turn makes sure to give us a nice good look into Buscemi’s gob on multiple
occasions.
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| "I'm sorry, Mr. Bay, I'll never question your close-ups on Affleck's stubble again!" |
On the other hand, Deep Impact reserves the bulk of the
effects-blowing near the end, making it feel, more, well impactful. However,
the tradeoff is that most of it isn’t as memorable as Armageddon—even if it is
generally less dizziness inducing in cinematography and attempts to actually
make sense. In Deep Impact, NASA wisely opts to just have probes drill their
nuke holes into the space rock than employing drunken oil drillers, but, well,
it doesn’t make for Affleck and Stromare flying through a landscape made out of
inexplicable spikey things on their militarily armed space monster truck. Sure,
it’s directed with all the grace of a 8-year old given six bags of sugar, a
camcorder, and a collection of space and army toys, but there’s something to be
said for just sheer, unrestricted scrotum-brained id just running riot on the
film reel. If nothing else, Armageddon made itself the sweaty apex of the
mid-late 90s disaster movie craze, short of perhaps Independence Day, and
whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing I leave to you. At the very least,
it’s not quite a forgettable boring overlong dump like Pearl Harbor.
One thing I do miss from 90s blockbusters is the
overdramatic scores and musical suites they had, present in both films.
Armageddon has a genuinely memorable score by Trevor Rabin, and then you get
Aerosmith wailing about how they ‘don’t wanna close mah aaaaaaaaarghhhhhhs’.
James Horner is great also in Deep Impact, which knows when to use the music
and when not to for some good effectiveness. Likewise, besides these two films,
I enjoy the bombast and sheer over the top scores of everything from Stargate,
ID4, Con Air, and so on. Hell, even crud like Wild Wild West had some memorable
tracks—how much of say Marvel’s music these days can you recall?
Overall, Deep Impact and Armageddon boils down to a matter
of decent but subdued to dumb but memorable. Deep Impact doesn’t do too much wrong,
but the characters aren’t that fleshed out for the most part and most of the
first two acts are fairly forgettable, Morgan Freeman aside. Armageddon is a
silly clusterfuck, but you’re not forgetting the dialogue and cast anytime
soon. You’re better off watching the second with some friends and beer to riff
on it, but that might make for more fun than the former by yourself.
In the end, both films have their place for no other reason
than to mark that time when Hollywood decided that space rocks being blown up
by nukes was what we all wanted. Armageddon itself ultimately proved its value
as NASA teaching material for spotting the myriad inaccuracies (no joke), be it
the bizarre physics to grass inexplicably growing on the asteroid. If you do
prefer subdued films that might impact some semblance of real science, Deep
Impact is your thing. But if you need something for a corny movie night…well,
there’s not much better than Armageddon for peanut-munching and joking. Decide
for yourself, and make your own Hobbit references or invariability superior
Aerosmith karaoke. You might just have fun either way.
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