A film fanatic such as myself will always have a hard decision
when trying to choose a favourite film, there are that many films which I could
write about why they are so technically and emotionally brilliant in my eyes,
yet I have had to whittle it down to just one.
I have chosen
Armageddon, a brilliant film containing many a list actors who most defiantly stepped
up to the plate, including, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler just to name a
few. Released in July 1998, with a
budget of $140 million, Armageddon was a huge box office hit raking in a
massive $36 million back in its first weekend of showing in over 3000 American
cinemas, and ever since has continued to earn; its total lifetime gross is over
half a billion dollars the majority of which from countries outside America.
Directed by Michael Bay, Armageddon follows a journey of a
group of oil drillers as lead by Bruce Willis who have been asked to save the
earth from an incoming meteorite. The group are persuaded by NASA to fly out
and land on the meteorite and attempt to blow it up by drilling to the centre
and setting off a bomb, in hope that it will save the world. Throughout the
film you are taken on a journey through each of the accidental hero’s lives as
well as shown the love connection of Ben Affleck and Liv Tylers characters as
much to Harry’s (Willis) disgust. Tyler and Willis play father and daughter who
do not have the best relationship, while both giving immaculate performances
you begin to believe and feel exactly what they are portraying, whilst feeling
the emotion behind the storyline.
Michael Bay, who also helped produce Armageddon, does a
stunning job behind the camera consistently keeping an audience interested
through his use of camera angles and the mise-en-scene. Although the narrative seems rather unrealistic, the body language between characters, makeup and costume as well as most other things are kept natural and realistic throughout, this helps for the audience to suspend their beliefs on the science behind the narrative, focus on the story and indulge in the action.
However Michael Bay and the actors must not be given all the credit, leader of the editing team Chris Lebenzon, uses many editing techniques to his advantage to achieve an incredible finish, he mainly uses fast paced editing especially during the key sequences as it is a convention of the disaster genre which makes it difficult for the audience to see everything that is going on in the scene, yet it allows the viewer to see a lot more in a short sequence. He also uses many slow-motion shots during these sequences to not only show a variety so that the audience does not get bored, but to show how the characters emotions are affected in these scenes. These completely different types of conventional editing techniques show a juxtaposition in each other as well as showing just how talented Lebenzon must be to make the shots look fluid.
Other than the technical reasons behind why Armageddon is a great film, there are reasons it appeals to me personally. The amount of A list stars in the film brings in a wide audience, which is what attracted me to the film in the first place, the likes of Bruce Willis, Michael Duncan and Owen Wilson all within the space of one film gives the film plenty of credit. Every time i see Armageddon i will always tear up at the end, and it tells me how entranced in the film i have become to cry every time, and trust me, i have seen it many of times! There is also the occasional humorous one liners which top of the fantastic script writing and enables to you enjoy aspects of other genres such as comedy, already on top of, disaster, science fiction and drama. Overall, i believe Armageddon is a brilliant film and a definite success from right inside Hollywoods blockbusters.
