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80Armageddon is as irresistible as it's indefensible.
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75It looks like a TV ad, or 200 of them strung together, with the same kind of gaudy virtuosity, lavish technique and expensive self-mockery tinging every shot.
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70The movie is ridiculous, but since the special effects are really quite impressive, that seems a small point.
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70Armageddon is awesome, dude, but it's, like, short on awe.
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70It might make you tense, it might make you nauseous, and its clangorous roar could well give you a migraine headache.
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The surprisingly witty script was worked on by a squadron of writers, including Robert Towne.
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67It's big, it's stupid, it's pretty kick-ass.
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63Armageddon is a testosterone and adrenaline cocktail, with almost no intelligence added for flavoring.
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60Sometimes the movie can't decide whether to tug REALLY HARD at the heart strings, or make you laugh at the zany oil riggers.
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When it's all over, you can't remember if you've been watching a movie or just a jumbo-sized coming attraction.
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50Trying to pick faults with a sound-and-spectacle juggernaut like Armageddon is like taking an ant gun to an elephant: All the movie's staggering conventional weaknesses -- ludicrous plot, weak characterization, incomprehensible staging and ambient racket -- are irrelevant.
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50Yes, it's a testosterone cocktail, but at least it doesn't leave you feeling as though you've been tumbled around in a gem polisher for two-and-a-half hours.
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50Bay doesn't stage scenes, exactly -- he stages moments.
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50The actors mark time, and the gung-ho heroics on display are embarrassingly hollow.
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40Bay directs Armageddon in a way that seems more concerned with constantly assaulting the senses than anything else, hoping perhaps that the quick cuts and constant explosions will distract from his film's many flaws.
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40Director Michael Bay's filmmaking style is so frantic and frenetic that it's often impossible to figure out exactly what is happening.
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38Armageddon may sell tickets, thanks largely to a high-powered marketing machine that's been conducting its own countdown for the past several months. But it's not a pretty picture.
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25An assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained.
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25There are barrages of fast cuts to distract us from the fact that the director is showing us no real action.
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20Much of the confusion, as well as the lack of dramatic rhythm or character development, results directly from Bay's cutting style, which resembles a machine gun stuck in the firing position for 2 and a half hours.
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10Not wishing to spoil the fun -- pretty hard to come by anyway in this 1998 blockbuster's 150 minutes -- I won't tell you the outcome, but I'll wager you can guess.
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0How do I hate Armageddon? Let me count the ways.
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0So predictable it could have been written by a chimp who's watched too much TV, the huge movie is as dumb as it is loud, and it's way too loud.