Argo (2012)

Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman

Director: Ben Affleck

Genre: Biography, Drama, Thriller

Rating: A-

"The whole country is watching you, they just don't know it."

I'm just going to start this by stating that I'm not an American.  I do not now live in the States, nor have I ever lived there.  As such I really don't buy into the whole "rah, rah, yay America!" act that a lot of movies do.  I am, however, a historian, and as such I love historical films because in my opinion history is always an interesting story and has so much drama to it... in a story like the one of the Canadian Capers, you don't need to add fictional elements - the story is already there.

Argo is the story of the Canadian Capers, although to my disappointment it does do a lot of fiction weaving within the story.  During the 1979 Iranian Revolution the U.S. embassy in Tehran is taken over by Islamic militants, with the bulk of the American employees being taken as hostages.  Six of them, however, managed to escape and take cover in the home of the Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor (played by actual Canadian Victor Garber).  Enter the CIA: specialist Tony Mendez (Affleck) is brought to help come up with a way to get the Americans out of Iran, and he comes up with the idea of posing as a film crew in Iran scouting locations for a science fiction movie.  With the help of Hollywood make-up artist John Chambers (Goodman) and film producer Lester Siegel (Arkin) Tony creates an elaborate plot, goes in to Iran, and sets out to save the Americans.

In regards to the necessary components of a good film, Argo really does have it all.  There's suspense and action, and it really makes your heart race.  Even going into the movie with a basic knowledge of what happened and the end results, I was sitting on the edge of my seats anxious to see whether the Capers would make it out, and if so just how. There's a lot of humour to it too, some of it appropriate and some of it less so, but all of it good.  One of my favourite lines was when one of the Capers said that they were a Canadian, then tossed in the obligatory "eh."  Somehow I think the laugh in the Canadian theatre that I was in was somewhat different from the one that was intended to get from that.  There were a lot of laughs like that, one liners that you really weren't expecting but had everyone in the theatre laughing.  Some were lines that you saw in the trailer, but in the actual film it was somehow funnier.

That being said... as both a historian and a Canadian, I do have problems with this movie.  It was really enjoyable, I'll give you that, and I can even understand why it's getting Oscar buzz.  However, there are huge liberties taken with the history of this film (and the portrayal of the characters within it, Affleck's getting a fair bit of flack for choosing to portray the Latino Mendez).  The story itself is changed in order to create some sort of suspense and an action sequence, particularly in the latter third of the film.  I really can't see how this is necessary, and as someone who's read a bit about this incident and who is interested in history, it bothers me that filmmakers (in general, not just Affleck) feel the need to do this.  The story is already there, they don't need to change it in order to make it better.  The reason why the Canadian Caper is such a great story is not because Affleck was able to introduce a good chase scene, it's a great story because it's about people coming together to do what many would think to be impossible.  When you couple it with the postscript that initially accompanied the film (which I haven't read itself, but reports of it say that it essentially indicated that the CIA let Taylor take credit for the incident, implying that he doesn't really deserve the accolades he (and the Canadian government) received because this incident), it becomes a bit of an insult and a piece of pro-American propaganda.  That in itself was a disappointment.  While the postscript was changed, the film itself still keeps much of that tone.

Armageddon (1998)

Starring: Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, Will Patton, Keith David, Steve Buscemi

Director: Michael Bay

Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

Rating: C+

This is not a good movie - few Michael Bay films really are.  It's lame and cheesy and ridiculous and I absolutely love it.  Unlike the similarly themed Deep Impact, Armageddon is pretty much entirely about the attempt to save the planet and not really at all about the people left behind, facing the end of the Earth.  Sure there are some brief moments showing the latter half, but they're not what's important.  That's typical of a Michael Bay film though; they're not about the little people, they're about the great men doing great things and the women who love them.

Armageddon opens with the discovery of an asteroid the size of Texas that is going to hit the planet and wipe out all life on it - even bacteria - in less than a month.  NASA scientists, lead by Dan Truman (Thorton) try to devise a way to save the planet, the best plan of which involves sending a group of astronauts up to it, drill a big hole into the asteroid (named Dottie), drop a nuke into it, resulting in an explosion that will divide the asteroid into two halves - if done before passing the magic line, Dottie will fly past Earth, but if done too late then both halves will still collide.  In order to do this, NASA needs drillers, specifically Harry Stamper (Willis) and his crew, considered to be the best deep-sea drillers on the planet.  This group of ragtag drillers are sent into space with NASA's best, all hoping to blow up the asteroid before its too late.  Oh, and there's a love story - Harry's daughter, Grace (Tyler), is in love with reckless driller A.J. Frost (Affleck), a fact that Harry is not happy about.

Where to start... So, it being a Michael Bay film, the science isn't exactly... well, science-y.  Bay depends on one-liners, flashiness, and things going boom, not intelligence.  There are no real good moments of solitude and reflection, something is happening every moment of the film.  When the people on the earth are reflecting about the impending doom it's always in this moment of passion and anger, there's no calms or moments of sorrow.  When things go wrong its huge and disastrous - such as the explosion of the Russian space station.  A lot of this creates confusion, it's hard to tell just what it is that's going on at points in the movie.  It's also rather messed up that Armageddon doesn't do anything to show any contingency plans and what not - in Deep Impact there's the Noah's Ark style backup plan, but there's nothing of the sort mentioned in Armageddon.

Actually, I do want to take back part of an earlier statement.  This film does take little people and makes them into great people.  In the end it's really the same result, but it's not entirely the same intent.  There are some great moments of Liv Tyler's that are really moving, as well as a few with the crew themselves.  For the most part though, it's all just silliness.  Armageddon doesn't really address the issue of the impending doom so much as the issue of how to stop it.  No one's caring about what happens after the team fails, just about ensuring that the team doesn't fail.  As such there's this huge gap to the film, this thing that's missing.  Despite that, though, I still love it.  Its an old favourite and I suspect it always will be for me.  Definitely not the best action film out there, or the best Armageddon movie, but still a good one.