Starring:	Bruce Willis	144min
	Ben Affleck
	Steve Buscemi	1998
	Liv Tyler
	Billy Bob Thornton
Screenplay:	Jonathan Hensleigh	Action
Director:	Michael Bay	Colour

Region	2	Studio:	Buena Vista
Format	Double Sided, Single Layer	Subtitles	English Closed Captioned
	(Movie on 2 sides)
Aspect ratio	2.35:1
Anamorphic	No
Soundtracks	Dolby Digital 5.1	Extra Features	None
Case type	Amaray

The DVD * 1/2		The Movie * * * *
Well, Disney have excelled themselves with this one. At 144 minutes, it contains the now-expected side change - and it's as awful as any they've yet done. At 77.44, just as the asteroid whizzes by and the music reaches a crescendo, the picture goes black and the sound mutes. In true Bruckheimer style, it's as subtle as a sledgehammer. What wasn't expected on release is that the transfer is not even anamorphic. This undoubtedly confirms that Disney have no professional concern whatsoever for their product, customers or even staff (it appears the UK PR department were misinformed that the disc WAS anamorphic - if this is true, a deliberate lie on someone's part or merely gross incompetence). Given that, it may come as a surprise to report that the transfer looks extremely good - this is the best non-anamorphic picture I have yet seen, and for some unaccountable reason (since the maths doesn't really work out all that impressive), considerably more perceived resolution than an equivalent region 1 title. There are no real artifacts to speak of, and that's important when you zoom out the image to fill a 16:9 set. The colour rendition is excellent. The sound is a little odd - it took a good deal of playing with the amp before a comfortable balance was found. It seems as if (in common with some other Disney releases) the dynamic range is not that high - maybe the level of dialogue is far higher than usual. And yet, the words still manage to be buried in the mix at times. But with enough fiddling, everything sounds as thunderous as you'd hope, with the surrounds throwing in their penny's worth. Despite the good image and serviceable sound, this is a fatally flawed disc. If Disney had at least faded gracefully to black on the side change, maybe the viewing experience wouldn't have been as severely compromised. But short of putting 30 minutes of Trevor Mc Donald saying "and finally..." in the middle of the film, this is about as off putting as it gets. If you are able, you may want to consider importing a region 1 version - for everyone else, if you love the movie it's a case of lumping it, I'm afraid.		For the earth to be hit by one apocalyptic meteor in 1998 could be considered unfortunate - to be hit by two seems cosmic carelessness. After Deep Impact bored the world rigid by having us watch the TV news for 135 minutes, along comes the even longer Armageddon. But, unlike the tracked trajectory of the rock in question, this time things just fly by. The only part of the plot that seems worth repeating is that this time our crew is made up of colourful redneck oil riggers. "Of course it is", you cry. The scam is that these cowboys, brought in by a desperate NASA with only 18 days to go, are supposed to land on the rock, drill 800 feet, drop a nuclear bomb, light the blue touchpaper and retreat to a safe distance. Willis, a modern day Red Adair, thus has his time equally split between literally saving the planet and, less literally, his daughter (Tyler)'s virtue, as she bores down on reckless-yet-sweet Affleck. The first hour of all this is absolutely stupendous. Bay directs this like he did The Rock - no shot lasts more than a second and a half, and the script is stuffed full of full-on-fun macho types. The inherent joy of Armageddon is that while the set up may be hopelessly implausible (although actually less so than the embarrassing Deep Impact), it is the characters - played by an unusually strong cast - out for the ultimate rodeo that make this the enjoyable romp that it is. The effects, it's worth adding, also are far more effective and memorable than the competition. As it all goes on, the pace doesn't flag as such, but they can't resist the temptation to begin to believe their own hype and take it seriously. Eventually we're weighed down by endless "it's gonna blow"s, unintentionally funny Tearful Baring Of The Souls and at least 37 crisis to many, but at least Buscemi is kept alive to pepper things with his usual comic schtick. For a while there, it looked like Armageddon was going to be an all-out comic adrenaline rush classic (the New York sequence is astonishing, and in 5 minutes tops anything in Godzilla). As it is, Armageddon is slightly flabby, a tad uneven but still a hugely enjoyable romp that makes the rest of 1998's mayhem making blockbusters look the damp squibs they really are.