Armageddon - Review

This movie truly baffles me. How can one-half of a movie be so boring and poorly executed and the second half be so entertaining and suspenseful? Right off the bat, I don't hate Michael Bay. The Rock, The Island and the first Transformers were all really entertaining movies and all of Bay's films have excellent cinematography and a musical score. Same goes for Armageddon. It looks fantastic and the score is really fantastic. Not to mention the incredible cast Bay has assembled for this movie. The two main issues I have with Michael Bay films are the really weird attempts at comedy and that the so-called 'character development' is glanced over in one monolog. All the sci-fi elements about an asteroid hitting the earth and wiping out humanity were really interesting and is a great motive, but I couldn't care less about these characters training for this mission. We have one scene to learn the backstories of our three main characters... and that's about it. So for me, the first half of this movie was really boring because I simply couldn't get invested in the characters or what they were doing. Then all of a sudden, when the story heads to outer space, it became extremely intense and entertaining. And that's what Michael Bay can do best, create tension. So many times the characters face a time limit and some giant obstacle and just barely escape and it had me on the edge of my seat every time. After thinking about it, If this film was directed by two different people, then this movie would be fantastic. If the character development portions of the film were more fleshed out and didn't focus on the weird comedy of the side characters, then I (and the rest of the audience for that matter) would have a stronger connection with the characters while they are in space trying to save the world. If you absolutely LOVE Michael Bay, then you'll probably love this movie but for me, I don't think I'll watch it again.