Armageddon (1998)

There are blockbusters that age into classics, blockbusters that fade without trace, and then there is a third category occupied almost entirely by Armageddon: films that remain lodged in the cultural memory not because they are particularly good, but because they are so completely, unapologetically themselves. Released in the summer of 1998 by Touchstone Pictures and produced by the reliably bombastic Jerry Bruckheimer, the film landed in a moment when Hollywood had decided that bigger was not just better but the only acceptable unit of measurement. It arrived the same year as Deep Impact, a rival asteroid-extinction film that went for a more sombre, character-driven approach, and the contrast between the two tells you more or less everything you need to know about Armageddon's priorities. The premise, in which NASA recruits a team of deep-core oil drillers to fly to a Texas-sized asteroid and detonate a nuclear device before it obliterates the planet, is the sort of thing that reads as self-parody in a pitch meeting. The film, running at a considerable 151 minutes, never once blinks.

Michael Bay was, by 1998, already a known quantity: a director whose visual style favoured rapid cutting, lens flares, low-angle hero shots, and a general atmosphere of patriotic frenzy. His later work, including Transformers (2007), would refine (if that is the word) those tendencies into something approaching self-parody, but Armageddon catches him at the height of his commercial confidence. The script, developed from a story by Jonathan Hensleigh and Robert Roy Pool, was reportedly worked on by a remarkable number of writers before production, and it shows in places, though perhaps not in the ways the studio intended. The whole enterprise has the texture of several different films occupying the same two and a half hours: a workplace comedy about roughnecks, a romance between Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler's characters, a procedural thriller about NASA bureaucracy, and an action spectacular that periodically detonates the other three for spectacle's sake.

The cast assembled around that sprawling premise is, on paper, polished but unremarkable in the sense that everyone is doing exactly what you would expect. Bruce Willis, who had by this point covered considerable ground across action films (you can see what he brought to rather different science fiction territory in The Fifth Element (1997), and to a more grounded thriller in Twelve Monkeys (1995)) anchors the film as Harry Stamper, a hard-worn driller whose professional pride and fatherly anxiety are the closest thing the film has to a moral centre. Billy Bob Thornton brings a dry, composed steadiness to the NASA administrator role that serves as a useful counterweight to the chaos around him. Affleck and Liv Tyler handle the romantic subplot with as much conviction as the material allows, which is to say they are charming enough that you do not actively resent the scenes. Will Patton rounds out the principal crew with the kind of wounded, quietly dignified supporting turn that tends to get overlooked in films this loud. The ensemble as a whole has a loose, bantering energy that at least makes the pre-launch sections of the film feel lived-in.

Armageddon (1998) is peak Michael Bay excess. Loud, flashy, emotionally over-the-top, and packed with enough explosions to level a planet. Bruce Willis leads a team of roughneck oil drillers turned astronauts on a mission to save Earth from a Texas-sized asteroid, which sounds ridiculous on paper but somehow works because the film commits fully. It’s not subtle, not smart, and definitely not realistic, but as a two-and-a-half-hour adrenaline rush with emotional melodrama cranked to eleven it kinda delivers. It’s predictable from minute one (training montages, last-minute heroics, tearful goodbyes, and a ticking clock that somehow still leaves time for a wedding in space) but you don’t watch Armageddon for surprises. You watch it for the spectacle, the heart, and the sheer audacity of its cheese. And yeah, it’s very cheesy. Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler’s love story feels straight out of a soap opera. But then there’s the soundtrack, especially Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.” That song is the soul of the movie. Haunting, dramatic, perfectly timed. It turns what should be schlock into something oddly touching. It’s weird how big rock bands don’t make those iconic, era-defining movie songs anymore. Now we get forgettable pop remixes or bland orchestral cues. We lost something when the era of the power-ballad soundtrack died. Flawed, silly, but undeniably entertaining. A guilty pleasure with real heart under all the noise. Not great cinema, but a cultural moment. For better or worse, we’ll never miss a thing about it.

If I am being honest with myself, Armageddon is exactly the kind of film I find difficult to be properly cross with, even when I know I probably should be. It is manipulative in the most transparent possible way, and yet the manipulation lands more often than it has any right to. I think about how action films aimed at a similarly broad audience tend to operate now, and there is something genuinely odd about the absence of that power-ballad centrepiece, that one song designed to make an entire multiplex audience feel something they had not planned on feeling when they bought their tickets. For all the noise and all the cheese, Armageddon had that. It is the sort of film that rewards low expectations and punishes close attention, which is perhaps the most honest thing you can say about it. Turn your brain off, leave your cynicism at the door, and it will give you a reasonable evening. Just maybe do not check the runtime first.

Rating: ★★★  | Year: 1998  | Watched: 2025-11-03

View on Letterboxd →

Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for Armageddon (1998) on YouTube

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Rakuten TV
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.

Related on Movies With Macca

More with Bruce Willis: Alpha Dog (2006) · The Fifth Element (1997) · Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996) · Twelve Monkeys (1995)
More from the 1990s: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · Blue (1993) · Cemetery Man (1994)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More science fiction: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Fantastic Planet (1973) · Nightmare City (1980) · The Long Walk (2025)