Look let's just admit this right now.  The best part of Armageddon is the Ben Affleck commentary track.  

Or “Yeah Science! Bitch!”

the criterion collection is funny because i think bay just asked if armageddon and the rock could be in it and they were like ‘yeah, sure’. it has this rep as being ‘the canon’ but, like, lena dunham and kevin smith are both in it.

The section at the beginning with old Matt Damon should have gone at the end, and the part at the end should have ended up on the cutting room floor. I know there’s a takeout in that you’re supposed to think the old guy is Tom Hanks, but it didn’t really matter in the end. The old man scene is ruined by the dialogue.…

After that speech, when Ribisi is gut shot. shivering, while his friends try in vain to stop the bleeding, he cries out for his mother and if fucking wrecks me every time.

Because you can’t circlejerk around good American blue collar men, who wants to cheer for the science bitches?

Wasn’t that part of the plot? They were trying to train the astronauts, and Bruce Willis’ character was all, “they can’t do this! Only real wildcatters can do this!” or some bullshit?

It is the reason why they can’t jump. Woody should know this.

Aerosmith really makes the whole thing

Yet of all the other ’98 blockbuster films - Deep Impact, SPR, what have you - Armageddon   was most focused on throwing in the cheap shot at Godzilla.

It’s one where the sooner you say “fuck it” and just roll with it, the more you’ll enjoy it. If you get hung up on Bruce Willis firing a shotgun on an active offshore drill rig (which IRL would almost certainly go full Macondo), then it’s not going to be the movie for you.

There is a strong case here for Truffaut’s comment “For example, some films claim to be antiwar, but I don’t think I’ve really seen an antiwar film. Every film about war ends up being pro-war.” That said, I thing that Spielberg did the best job anyone has ever done at making an anti-war film, and the opening of SPR…

Yeah I’ve seen this once, and never again, partly because the war scenes are so viscerally upsetting, but mostly because the maudlin opening and closing ruin what is an otherwise gripping movie. This is the first time Spielberg’s inability to end his movies rears its head. After this it’s all happy endings, oedipal…

He tries very rarely nowadays, but Vin Diesel is actually a good actor - somewhat limited in range, but really charismatic and of course, skilled at using that gravel-in-a-cement-mixer voice.

Hanks gives a hauntingly brilliant perfromance, but the cast is really a Murderer’s Row from top to bottom, especially Ed Burns and, of all people, Vin Diesel. 

Maybe I’m an outlier, then, because every time I think about popping in my “Saving Private Ryan” DVD for a re-watch, I change my mind half the time because of the D-Day sequence. It is utterly brutal.

It’s not just the last ten minutes that should have been cut — the opening is part of the same piece. The framing is not only cheap syrup, it’s forgettable. I think the bit in this piece about Spielberg threatening to block late arrivals is telling — he may not have been worried about people missing the D Day landing,…

As is de rigour with just about every Spielberg film, if he were to excise the last ten minutes, it’d be perfect. But no... He has to get the schmaltz in.

I remember Ben Affleck mentioning in the commentary for Armageddon that he pointed out to Michael Bay that it’d be easier to train astronauts to use the drilling equipment than it’d be to train oil riggers to be astronauts and Bay told him to “Shut the fuck up.”.

Armageddon is a movie I absolutely hated as a teenager when it came out and really didn’t enjoy.