After discovering that an asteroid the size of Texas will impact Earth in less than a month, NASA recruits a misfit team of deep-core drillers to save the planet. (from IMDb)

When it comes to end-of-the-world summer blockbusters, Armaggedon exceeded expectations! It's the second meteor-to-end-all-life-on-Earth movie to drop this summer (I'm looking at you, Deep Impact), and it's easily the better of the two. Michael Bay's latest is an edge-of-your-seat action thriller that doesn't take itself too seriously, making for great fun at the movies!

The story centers around a crew of oil drillers who are drafted into the space program to help stop a meteor hurtling toward earth. Bay doesn't let the doom-and-gloom of the plot weigh the tone down, however. This is one disaster movie that starts off funny and ends funny, while trying to keep a serious tone and remain an "end of the world" picture. The movie that comes to mind when I watched this film was 1996's Independence Day. However, Armageddon totally blows Independence Day out of the water in my book. This movie was funny, romantic, very sad at times, and very suspenseful, offering a little something for everyone.

When it comes to content, there were some questionable Christian references in the film -- questionable because of some of the surrounding content. While some of the characters mention praying to God--and in one scene one even says, "Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Lord! Thank You!"--there still is talk of premarital sex, lots of blasphemy spoken in the movie, and some of the characters go into a strip club. So whether this is a pro-Christian movie or not (it's unlikely, though), the presence of blasphemy alone would probably answer that question clearly.

Regarding other content, there isn't any nudity or sex in the film, but there is reference to sex. When a few crew members are in the strip club, there are a couple female dancers that are revealing quite a bit, but aren't really nude. Also, when A.J. is playing with animal crackers on Grace as she's lying on the ground with her shirt open, there isn't any nudity (just Grace's black bra is shown) or sex, but there is a little spoken innuendo. There are also a few sexual references by Rockhound during the movie, and also by some crew members referring to Grace. On the topic of language, it's moderate, but there is 1 "f" word, 6 "s" words, and 1 "S.O.B." For violent/graphic content, there isn't much, mainly just some scratches and bloody scrapes on a couple dead characters' faces.

Overall, I really enjoyed Armageddon. Except for some of the content, I really enjoyed the film. Due to the innuendo, language, and sensual content, however, I can't give it any higher than 3 stars.

- John DiBiase (reviewed: 7/13/98) (Re-edited for grammar and such on 4/13/18)