Armageddon | Full Movie | Movies Anywhere

A summer blockbuster in all senses of the term, from its action-hero star to its wisecracking cheesy dialogue to all the stuff blowing up. The action is engagingly fast and furious, and the stars hold their own among the copious special effects.

For its targeted young audience, this is summer entertainment at its superficial, excessive best, a combination roller coaster ride and fireworks show, with doomsday as its funhouse theme.

For all its simulation of technical sophistication, the film relies on brawn, brutishness and mind-numbing, ear-splitting, dumb-downing destructiveness to keep going.

As written by a committee of five, it's every idea that filmmakers have tried in big-budget sci-fi dramas. Armageddon won't spell the end of these kind of pictures. But we can always hope.

It's still just second-quarter product, a moving illustration for a movie studio's annual report.