| 80 |
Newsweek
Armageddon is as irresistible as it's indefensible.
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| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
It 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.
|
| 70 |
LA Weekly
The movie is ridiculous, but since the special effects are really quite impressive, that seems a small point.
|
| 70 |
Washington Post
It might make you tense, it might make you nauseous, and its clangorous roar could well give you a migraine headache.
|
| 70 |
Slate
Armageddon is awesome, dude, but it's, like, short on awe.
|
| 70 |
The New Yorker
Daphne Merkin
The surprisingly witty script was worked on by a squadron of writers, including Robert Towne.
|
| 67 |
Austin Chronicle
It's big, it's stupid, it's pretty kick-ass.
|
| 63 |
ReelViews
Armageddon is a testosterone and adrenaline cocktail, with almost no intelligence added for flavoring.
|
| 60 |
Dallas Observer
Peter Rainer
When it's all over, you can't remember if you've been watching a movie or just a jumbo-sized coming attraction.
|
| 60 |
Film Threat
Sometimes the movie can't decide whether to tug REALLY HARD at the heart strings, or make you laugh at the zany oil riggers.
|
| 50 |
The New York Times
The actors mark time, and the gung-ho heroics on display are embarrassingly hollow.
|
| 50 |
Entertainment Weekly
Bay doesn't stage scenes, exactly -- he stages moments.
|
| 50 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Trying 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.
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
Yes, 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.
|
| 40 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Bay 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.
|
| 40 |
Los Angeles Times
Director Michael Bay's filmmaking style is so frantic and frenetic that it's often impossible to figure out exactly what is happening.
|
| 38 |
Christian Science Monitor
Armageddon 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.
|
| 25 |
Chicago Sun-Times
An assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained.
|
| 25 |
San Francisco Chronicle
There are barrages of fast cuts to distract us from the fact that the director is showing us no real action.
|
| 20 |
Variety
Much 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.
|
| 10 |
Chicago Reader
Not 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.
|
| 0 |
Washington Post
So 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.
|
| 0 |
Rolling Stone
How do I hate Armageddon? Let me count the ways.
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