Armageddon (1998)

REVIEW
It's hard to totally dislike a film that boasts a world-ending meteor and a cast of top-drawer actors instructed to play this action sci-fi yarn to melodramatic excess. When a meteor the size of Manhattan takes aim at our lovely planet, the world powers select a tough-talkin' oil rigger (Willis) and his colorful gang of misfit employees. This group includes the handsome Affleck as Willis' sidekick who, when not trying to save the world, keeps company with Tyler, the daughter of a mightily disapproving Willis. Others include the seriously weird Buscemi, and a more serious Patton (you know what happens to the more serious actors in epics like this -- they get squashed like a bug!). The scenes in which the riggers-cum-astronauts land on the meteor are rather good, though the story doesn't equal the effects. Armageddon can be mindless fun if not taken too seriously because it doesn't take itself too seriously.