Armageddon (M)
Director: Michael Bay
Bugs: Three out of Five

THERE are a couple of really, really scary moments in Armageddon.
Fleeting moments when you suspect this Jerry Bruckheimer production is not really a spoof of the big Budget non-stop action disaster movie genre after all.
Then, out of the blue, comes one of those reassuring, totally implausible, over the top action sequences - like a couple of space shuttles zipping in and out of a meteorite mindfield like dodgem cars at the Ekka - and you're clamouring for more. What a hoot! Fire lateral retro rockets! Rig for silent running! Oops, wrong battle theatre.
And just to allay any lingering doubts, finally that line you've been sweating on for almost two hours. A slight variation on the "There are some people here who'd like to shake your hand" and suddenly everything is right again in the universe.
Yes, it's the late 90s version of Flying Much Higher as famous deepsea oil driller Harry S Stamper (Bruce Willis) and his mottley crew of redneck misfits are fired into space by NASA to blow up a meteorite before it can destroy earth.
Heaps of top special effects - how did they make Steve Buscemi's teeth look so horrible! - and endless corny lines as only the Yanks know how where a stoney-faced Bruce Willis says things like: "A deepsea oil driller's gotta do what a deepsea oil driller's gotta do!"
Willis, who has earned the Hollywood nickname, Stuffing, for all the turkeys he's been in lately, is in his element here as screenwriters Jonathan Hensleigh and J.J. Abrams give the ensemble cast plenty of one-liners in what is probably one of the better comedies in recent years.
Stealing the show is that old pro Buscemi, adlibbing his way through a few day's work on the set as the sex-mad Rockhound and no doubt laughing all the way to the orthodondist in the process. Along for the bumpy ride are Stamper's crew of oildrillers Ben Affleck, Owen Wilson, Will Patton and Michael Duncan, with Affleck's squeeze interest being provided by Liv Tyler, who quite frankly is no Julie Hagarty. Billy Bob Thornton picks up a hefty paypacket reprising the Lloyd Bridges role in the orginal Flying High as the typical NASA control centre freak Dan Truman. Please don't salute, just yet.
"We've got a few weeks to train you guys to do what would take years with NASA's top astronauts," Truman enthuses. "Not that we've ever trained them for this sort of impossible, totally suicidal mission."
What's worse, Stamper's crew can't even boast about their bravery to their battered ex-wives, mistresses and/or hookers.
"If word of this impending Armageddon gets out," a sombre Truman explains, " the world will turn to anarchy. There will be widespread looting, extreme religious groups will take control of the political process and One Nation will not just win a few seats at the upcoming Australian election, they'll take enough to form government in their own right!"
"What do we have to do!" chorus the Stamper crew.
Armageddon reminded this reviewer of the very enjoyable Starship Troopers. Most of the fun is in the preparation for the big battles ahead. Extended action sequences of bugs being battled or meteorites being mined actually slow both movies' momentum, which is food for thought, is it not?

- Don Gordon-Brown

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (R)
Director: Terry Gilliam
Bugs: Three and a half out of Five

You're going to have to excuse me if this review goes off the rails a bit later.
To get me in the mood to write incisively about the bizarre life and times of gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson, I've just snorted quite a bit of coke. It was a three-litre bottle too, so I'm starting to spin out already. No wonder that shit rots naval cavities.
Terry Gilliam's visuals are also so over the top that to fully appreciate them, I've also dropped a bit of acid in the last half-hour.
Don't you just hate the smell of burning carpet under the wrong circumstances? At least I'm not using the computer at home so it's kinda fun to get some perspective on what it must have been like to trash someone else's property without giving a big rat's arse to the consequences.
At the very least, the coke and acid have given me some insight into the brilliance of Johnny Depp's decision to play Hunter exactly how Groucho Marx would have if he was still alive and still totally anti-social and wickedly self-absorbed.
And just to show that excess breeds excess, Hunter's partner in slime is played to perfection by a flabby Benicio Del Toro who...
Oh oh! Here they come again. THE BATS! Millions of them. Get away from me you LITTLE BASTARDS....

- Don Gordon-Brown

EDITOR'S APOLOGY: We were afraid this was going to happen so we took the precaution of commissioning a second reviewer to attend the preview screening of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (R)
Director: Terry Gilliam
Bugs: Three out of Five

Essentially a faithful visual reproduction of Thompson's famous novel, this Terry Gilliam-directed piece pretty much hits the mark.
This was always going to be a risky project: if it hit, it would stay hit; but if it missed.... Thankfully, Gilliam has crafted what amounts to a frantic black-humoured road movie. Yet is this alone a fitting tribute to the original text?
The trouble about text to screen adaptations is always going to be the parts that are missing: that can't be conveyed visually.
This problem is satisfactorily tackled by the judcious use of Thompson's verbatim musings, via Johnny Depp's narrative. That said, I though the film perhaps suffered from the inevitability of having to trim the narrative to suit the scope of the screen.
Regardless, it remains a humourous drugmentary documenting Thompson's savage journey to the heart of the American dream.
The main players, Depp and Benico Del Toro, are believable as they don the skins of Thompson and "Dr Gonzo" from the first frame, hurtling down the highway towards their target, Las Vegas. Between this scene and the last - featuring a lone Thompson barrelling in the opposite direction, we are treated to a buffet of cameo appearances from the likes of Christina Ricci and Gary Busey, not all of whom are instantly recognisable.
Basically, this is a tale of two comrades in substance setting out to push the envelope of reality in the already surreal setting of Las Vegas circa 1971. This is where the viewer is introduced to the main support player - the city itself. The nodding, neon backgrounds evoke an ever-present feeling of claustraphobia; an inherent fundamental of drug-induced paranoia. And to an extent, paranoia seems to be the fuel behind our characters' journey, The Fear and Loathing brought on by the knowledge and suspicion of an era coping with the death, post- 60s, of trust and compassion.
The America to which we are witness is one revolting against the perceived excesses of a tumultous decade. Postwar morality lies open like a wound; in one camp is the 'anything goes' generation; in the other the rightwing indignants with their string 'em up mentality.
Into this stormy and rather surreal sea sail our two tripping adventurers. There is an official alibi for their excesses, of course. Thompson was assigned the job of covering the Mint 400 offroad race for Sports Illustrated - but the temptation of unsanctioned insanity (with paid accommodation) is too much to bear.
Dash out a few words for the home office, then get seriously stuck into the head medicine. And do they what!
Between the wonderful renderings of hallucinogenic passages, we quickly get the feeling that these two voyagers aren't necessarily the type we would want to take home and meet mum. At times, ususally fuelled by the sundry illict supplies in Thompson's briefcase, they take on both sides of the crumbling American psyche. We witness what is perhaps the degradation of the soul that has come from suckling from the teat of a corrupt and violent regime.
At times, Thompson can be seen pondering what he has become; unsure if indeed he would like himself on first contact.
These ponderings are the more serious glue which holds together what otherwise might seem a gratuitous road movie of fearful excess, self-indulgence and self-loathing. It was grounding to hear Thompson's bittersweet reminiscences on the failure of the American Dream that blossomed so briefly in the 60s before being sullied by greed and conflict. These are the sorts of incisive refelctions that gave Thompson his real heavyweight appeal; besides possessing the abily to craft words in such a fashion as to have the reader laugh aloud in public, there is a razorsharp socio-politcal awareness which sets him above mere satire.
As such, any insight the characters gain along the way about themselves and the state of the nation comes at the cost of amplifying the The Fear itself. What they see is not at all comforting, leading them into outbursts of unsociable behaviour, as evidenced late in the movie when Del Toro's character gets scary with a knife towards a suitably petrified Ellen Barkin as an unlucky roadhouse waitress. Such 'antiscenes' allow us a window in the rotten apple hearts of these hapless residents of Freaktown USA.
Gilliam decided, apparently, that it would have been too easy to make straight antiheroes of his protagonists; in this fashion he has given the viewer something more than what could easily have been straight Gonzovision.
Viewer enjoyment will fall into a couple of simple categories:
If you are currently now, or have ever been, a card carrying member of the Poppers, Takers and Tokers Brigade, you'll be hardpressed not to appreciate at the very least Gilliam's brilliant visual renderings of the drugged mind.
If, on the other hand, you're the sort of person who leaves the room as soon as someone lights an incense stick, well, boy, are you in the wrong movie!

-Ewan Yamates