Film Retrospective: Armageddon - Space Drillers

"Now I know what a space dinner feels like"

There are some obviously ridiculous things about the film ‘Armageddon’. Bruce Willis would not work on an oilrig; there isn’t enough danger there. He would surely have to be on some sort of ‘space’ oilrig, mining space oil. This is clearly why Hollywood bigwigs decided to add in an elaborate plot element…space. 

Bruce Willis assembles a rag tag, rough neck, beaten down, washed out, dirty, reckless group of individuals to go to space and save the earth from a large rock. Apparently, according to a narrator, this is the son of a similar rock that destroyed the dinosaurs and is out for revenge. As astronauts would not be able to master the careful art of drilling holes in their short 8 month drilling experience, Bruce ambitiously requests the team being replaced with his friends and fellow drillers or ‘Drillermatrons’, if we are going to use official NASA terminology. 

One of these fantastic friends is Steve Buscemi. Steve Buscemi is the only actor in the world capable of playing a loveable man who has every despicable flaw. In the film Con Air, Steve hands in a sterling turn as convicted, not wrongly convicted mind you, pedophile and notorious rapist, Garland Greene. He spends the entirety of the film purveying a misunderstood and loveable rapist, even stopping to share a song (surprisingly not a euphemism for a penis, which I imagine was as hard as steel when filming) with a seven-year-old girl. Nothing says redemption like singing to a little girl instead of doing what he obviously wants to do…rape her, literally rape her, maybe even kill her. Buscemi has had less disturbing roles however, such as Crazy Eyes in Mr Deeds, a loveable, if not psychotically on edge, cross-eyed man. He has taken on smaller if not equally normal roles such as Bananas the Clown in 13 moons. Buscemi even played a gerbil in hit animated comedy, G-Force, a film entirely about gerbils and not about him being a rapist, This clearly is the man you want to take to space, cast in space and put in space. This film could have even been retitled ‘Steve Buscemi, Space Pervert’ and it would have probably made more sense. At one point he genuinely implies he would like a female soldier to kick him in the balls for pleasure. Then in a scientifically accurate moment he contracts the deadly and constantly occurring disease, ‘Space Dementia’. 

"Dangerous but hilarious"

This is similar to the disease contracted by the elderly when they become hilarious and loose their possessions and attack care workers. )The space version only differs slightly in that it involves 'space' and is instantly diagnosed as ‘Space Dementia’ and no other recognised medical disease, as it is impossible to contract a disease or mental disorders in the place known as space, unless of course that disease contains the word ‘space’. This also applies to ‘Space Flu’ and ‘Space Cancer’. 

This brings me on to another preposterous element of the film. Not more absurd I imagine than the casting of Billy Bob Thornton as the rogue space team leader and not a homeless man or alternatively the large, weeping, black man who grabs penises, from The Green Mile as a large weeping black man who grabs penises…but in space. No, in truth, no moment rings as absurdist than the moment of genius when a man in a suit, apparently some kind of ‘Space Lawyer’ states. “Patents don’t exist in space” . This simple justification for the illegal production of a large, boring (pun alarm) drill was probably put in an absent minded moment, but surely they cant think that’s true.. It must be difficult to complete a screenplay that is so scientifically accurate while being easily understandable. Maybe I should point out some of the better zingers.

“You’re override, its been…overridden” - this surely defeats the point

“We’ve got a hole to dig up here” – but that’s not a boring thing to do because he’s in space.

“I’ve been drilling holes for 30 years and I’ve never not made the distance” – Bruce Willis’s job is to dig holes in the sea. That’s easier than beating up puppies, or children.

"This actually happened"

Or, if that’s not enough, maybe the scene in which Billy Bob Thornton depicts the complex space landing to 7 grown men with toy spaceships on chopsticks, a big globe, a meteorite made of paper mache’ and a genuine sense of conviction. At one point Owen Wilson thinks this is ridiculous. When a man who can only talk in whispers and refuses to fix his dumb, fucking nose, thinks you are being ridiculous, you should cease doing what you are doing. (Its fine when he's in Wedding Crashers, because its half him weeping and you can barely hear him whisper over the sound of Vince Vaughn eating everything within the gravitational pull of his massive melon of a head).

From the Editor ‘ a pretty part of a new emerging maple syrup conglomerate deal'