I have to say, all the faux heroism does become fun, for a moment. Faced with a Texas-sized asteroid headed right for the earth, a team of oil drillers, led by Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) are called in by the government to land on the meteor and drop a nuclear bomb into an 800 foot hole. I’m not joking, this is serious.

Armageddon plays a lot like a Michael Bay film, which is a coincidence considering Michael Bay directed it. At one end we have lots of explosions. Before the said asteroid hits the earth, lots of smaller rocks fall to the earth, coincidently smacking downtown Paris and New York. Lots of things blow up. It’s kinda cool actually.

On the other end we have some absolutely unnecessary romantic tension. One of the drillers going up on the meteor is A.J. (Ben Affleck), boyfriend to Grace (Liv Tyler), who also happens to be Harry’s daughter. Harry refuses to let Grace see A.J. and so we have all that going on as a set up to Grace worrying about both A.J. and Harry up on the meteor.

The rest of the crew members seem to be there for the sake of an attempt at comic-relief from the extreme tension of things blowing up. Owen Wilson, Michael Clark Duncan, and Steve Buscemi are some of the drillers and Peter Stormare is a Russian Cosmonaut. That’s right, Buscemi and Stormare in outer space. I was half expecting William H. Macy to show up. None of it’s ever really funny though, except for Wilson, who’s funny just because he’s Owen Wilson

A lot of impossible stuff happens on the meteor and elsewhere and I was never really sure if we are supposed to take it seriously or not. But I don’t get caught up in that. I don’t mind it as long as there’s a purpose for it other than it looks cool. But there’s not. It’s all fake. The whole movie is a manufactured summer blockbuster with contrived humor, contrived tension, contrived romance and laden with special effects. But then, it is kinda fun