Armageddon (ZERO STARS)

"The United States government just asked us to save the world." So says Bruce Willis of the film Roger Ebert called, "The first feature-length movie trailer" and unfortunately nothing could save the film or its stars from the taint of Michael Bay's apoplectic direction or Jonathan Hensleigh's retarded scriptment.

The Acting: Uuuuuuuuuuuuunnnhhhh... [that's the sound of me wallowing in my own puke in a fetal position on the floor with my puke]. Let's put it this way. I've seen Dentine commercials with more acting chops. I've seen Joel Schumacher films with better acting, and I'm not even counting Lost Boys, so don't go there. There was more humanistic behavior in the storyboards for this movie, and that's just counting the scene's directional arrows. Liv Tyler's in it, the woman who started the later relaunched Natalie Portman School Of Inchoate Droning. I did not like the acting. Which is too bad, because there's a lot of good people in the cast like Stormare, Buscemi, Will Patton, William Fitchtner and Twin Peaks alum Grace Zabriskie.

The Story: Good, if you like shit.

The Direction: If Pearl Harbor was Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, then this was the sinking of Michael Bay's Lusitania. Oil rig workers blow up an asteroid with a nuke. I was no fan of Deep Impact, but Jesus H. Christ Mary Of Mother And Joseph. The baby girl drama queen named Ben Affleck couldn't out-emote a mote of dust, and Bay didn't help any. Willis is in full-on keep-your-eye-on-the-paycheck mode, and we all know that Michael Clarke Duncan has set back the civil rights movement 20 years at least. Fargo alumni Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare have an oh-so-forgettable reunion, and ultimately you won't see more good actors wasted outside of a movie with "Episode" and a roman numeral between 1-3 in its title. And what is the job of the director, above all else? To command a good performance from his actors. His non-meteorite actors, preferably.

Overall: All volume, no brains, balls or heart. Like watching a movie about one of those fucks that talks during the movie.

Tredekka Rules:

• Rule 3: Suck Actor Penalty--Ben Affleck, -1 point--Eddie Griffin, -1 point--Michael Clarke Duncan, -2 points--Owen Wilson, -3 points (and yes, these penalties are to be applied to all of their movies in the same amounts, I'm not playing favorites just because it's Armageddon).
• Rule 4: Sweet Actor Bonus--Keith David, +2 points
• Rule 5: Spitting = Good Acting. Not in this case, but I'm pretty sure I have to award it to somebody, what with all the incidental screaming that goes on...+1 point.
• Rule 18 (NEW RULE): The Two-Headed Calf Boobie Prize (It's never a good sign when two movies come out around the same time with nearly identical plots. -1 point for unoriginality, especially since Deep Impact screened first. And no, I don't care that they were probably in production at the same time.)
• Rule 19 (NEW RULE): Narration Won't Save You, Bitches. -1 point for hoping Chuck Heston would add a touch of class to this cinematic piece of trash. I wonder if Billy Bob told him, "Ah like da way yew tock."
• Rule 20 (NEW RULE): Don't Give Me A Headache. It's a simple rule, and rarely broken even by the worst movies. No so here. The sound systems in every theatre I saw this in were cranked up to bleeding. Funny, they don't feel the need to do that to movies written by, I dunno, David Mamet, yet witless dialogue like, "Chewie? Have you even seen Star Wars?" needs to be heard at painful volume. Even on TV, this movie's like a kid in a restaurant that won't shut up. -1 point.

Tredekka Score: (ZERO STARS)