Director: Michael Bay
Cast: Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck
Have I Seen It Before: I mean, yeah. I was both alive and awake in any kind of way in 1998, so I think I was kind of obligated*.
Did I Like It: Is there a movie more willfully stupid? Yes, I think The Legend of Zorro (2005) is about 20% dumber than this film. If I hadn’t just recently watched that film, I may have some other candidate. Perhaps the better question is: Is there a more willfully stupid movie that also largely got away with it**?
I submit that there is not.
You might roll your eyes and insist that this is a movie that requires one to turn off their brain. Sure, but with the sheer tonnage of sound in space, the logic of sending oil drillers into space, and the film’s reflexive need to put foreign countries through the most pain so the USA can remain largely unscathed, there’s a maximum yield, right? It’s an onslaught.
All of that could be forgiven, though, if it weren’t for one singular unbelievable moment. Explaining the mission that will save all of humanity, the President (Stanley Anderson, reprising his role from The Rock (1996), meaning this is technically also a sequel to the the original set of James Bond films) says:
And yet, for the first time in the history of the planet, a species has the technology to prevent its own extinction… Through all of the chaos that is our history; through all of the wrongs and the discord; through all of the pain and suffering; through all of our times, there is one thing that has nourished our souls, and elevated our species above its origins, and that is our courage.
Am I some kind of chump for finding the idea that we might be able to fix our problems somehow alluring? Maybe so.
*Speaking of obligating, I actually got pushed into asking a girl to go with me in one of the more lightly humiliating moments of my life. She said no. I mean, I guess it wasn’t that humiliating, objectively, but it was tied to going with the movies, so it felt like an attack on the home turf.
**A weird aberration that—no joke—kept me up a few nights ago: 1998 feels like an alien planet to the here and now. This is the highest grossing film of 1998. Of the top ten highest-grossing films of that year, only one was a sequel (Lethal Weapon 4) and only one was followed by sequels (Dr. Dolittle). Mulan had a re-make, but that hardly counts. Also, before you start screaming “so far” at me, I have a hard time imagining someone green-lighting a Gibson directed Lethal Finale/Lethal Weapon 5 after the dust settles on The Resurrection of the Christ. I think the record will stand.