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Not the Ben Affleck Armageddon, the Andy Lau Armageddon.
A disjointed, over-stuffed, intermittently coherent movie (or possibly several movies jammed together) made watchable and, if in company, extremely amusing, by the presence of the gorgeous Andy Lau and by its high WTF quotient.
I began watching this by myself. In the first two minutes, a priest spontaneously combusts. Then it cuts to sad computer scientist Andy Lau, moping adorably on his yacht. One of the very best features of this film was Andy Lau curled up sadly in chairs, sofas, etc. Oyce and I kept wanting to hug and cuddle him.
And then something happened that made me fall off my sofa laughing hysterically. I stopped the film, deciding that I needed to watch it with Oyce to watch her reaction to this.
Sappy music begins. Andy Lau's lovely fiancee skips merrily into the street WHAM she is squashed by a bus!
Words cannot convey the hilarious suddenness of this event.
It turns out that the world's ten most important scientists are being microwaved to death. Andy Lau, being one of them, needs police protection. He has a cop buddy (Anthony Wong) who is in love with a Scully-esque female cop. They go to the scene of the crime, and someone solemnly explains that nothing is left of the combusted scientist but his spine, liver, and left foot.
Andy Lau: "We must do an autopsy on the spine, liver, and left foot."
He begins seeing visions of his dead fiancee, interspersed with flashbacks to their life together. They are actually quite adorable and charming. It's like this sweet romantic comedy stuck in the middle of a weird sf film. They get noodles together WHAM BUS! (Again.)
At this point Oyce and I got so hungry that we ran to the kitchen and ate everything in it, even after I reminded her of microwaved humans.
Andy Lau explains, "Humans are mostly water. Water is H2O. Hydrogen and oxygen are both flammable. So it's not suprising that sometimes people spontaneously combust."
Later, they hold up a jar of dehydrated scientist and speculate that he could be reconstituted with water, like sea monkeys.
The Brotherhood of Technology (possibly related to the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants) leaves elegantly inscribed calling cards. You'd think they'd use email.
Andy Lau is hit over the head and meets a crazy guy in the hospital. The crazy guy is restrained with giant Ace bandages, since apparently the budget all went to hire Andy Lau and they couldn't afford a straightjacket.
Andy Lau's fiancee returns from the dead. There is a long, ridiculous meeting in which every apocalyptic theory ever is name-checked. Like the board meetings in Gundam WIng, we were more confused after they started explaining what was going on than before.
It concludes in a completely incomprehensible apocalypse, featuring kaleidoscopes, immortal blonde guys with mercury for blood, God, human combustion, and beams from space. And Andy Lau being beautiful, which is why I rented it in the first place.
Armageddon
A disjointed, over-stuffed, intermittently coherent movie (or possibly several movies jammed together) made watchable and, if in company, extremely amusing, by the presence of the gorgeous Andy Lau and by its high WTF quotient.
I began watching this by myself. In the first two minutes, a priest spontaneously combusts. Then it cuts to sad computer scientist Andy Lau, moping adorably on his yacht. One of the very best features of this film was Andy Lau curled up sadly in chairs, sofas, etc. Oyce and I kept wanting to hug and cuddle him.
And then something happened that made me fall off my sofa laughing hysterically. I stopped the film, deciding that I needed to watch it with Oyce to watch her reaction to this.
Sappy music begins. Andy Lau's lovely fiancee skips merrily into the street WHAM she is squashed by a bus!
Words cannot convey the hilarious suddenness of this event.
It turns out that the world's ten most important scientists are being microwaved to death. Andy Lau, being one of them, needs police protection. He has a cop buddy (Anthony Wong) who is in love with a Scully-esque female cop. They go to the scene of the crime, and someone solemnly explains that nothing is left of the combusted scientist but his spine, liver, and left foot.
Andy Lau: "We must do an autopsy on the spine, liver, and left foot."
He begins seeing visions of his dead fiancee, interspersed with flashbacks to their life together. They are actually quite adorable and charming. It's like this sweet romantic comedy stuck in the middle of a weird sf film. They get noodles together WHAM BUS! (Again.)
At this point Oyce and I got so hungry that we ran to the kitchen and ate everything in it, even after I reminded her of microwaved humans.
Andy Lau explains, "Humans are mostly water. Water is H2O. Hydrogen and oxygen are both flammable. So it's not suprising that sometimes people spontaneously combust."
Later, they hold up a jar of dehydrated scientist and speculate that he could be reconstituted with water, like sea monkeys.
The Brotherhood of Technology (possibly related to the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants) leaves elegantly inscribed calling cards. You'd think they'd use email.
Andy Lau is hit over the head and meets a crazy guy in the hospital. The crazy guy is restrained with giant Ace bandages, since apparently the budget all went to hire Andy Lau and they couldn't afford a straightjacket.
Andy Lau's fiancee returns from the dead. There is a long, ridiculous meeting in which every apocalyptic theory ever is name-checked. Like the board meetings in Gundam WIng, we were more confused after they started explaining what was going on than before.
It concludes in a completely incomprehensible apocalypse, featuring kaleidoscopes, immortal blonde guys with mercury for blood, God, human combustion, and beams from space. And Andy Lau being beautiful, which is why I rented it in the first place.
Armageddon
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From:
no subject
We already learned this in the original Batman movie. Just don't use hard water!
"Humans are mostly water. Water is H2O. Hydrogen and oxygen are both flammable. So it's not suprising that sometimes people spontaneously combust."
Um. This man needs to take chemistry again.
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The image that conjures up is hilarious. It's kind of a pity that 'people in jars' doesn't really fit into your body parts tag series.
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(Alas, AutoShoujo won't oblige with a title, and only says "You Are My Attack from Hell" and "Our Alchemical Forever." Actually, wait...)
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Delicious Chocolate Gods!
Androgynous Maniac Memorial!
Imperial Girlfriend Pudding! I'm going with this one.
Two trillion and a foot massage!
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Recipe for Lily Splendor (you have to have reconstitution instructions!)
Blurry Girlfriend Mine (shoulda READ the instructions)
Your Green Tea Maiden (just mix dehydrated lesbian scientist with Aojiru!)
A squintillion and homemade carrot cake! WITH cream cheese icing!
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It's nice to know that there are some things you can rely on...
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The problem is getting them to turn over halfway through.
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(Sorry to use your journal as email but I know she will see this and hopefully will grant my plaintive request).
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I saw this movie this weekend (it was amazing!), and there is a quick shot in the beginning of some kind of clear (BRINE?) shrimp swimming in an aquarium-like glass bowl in the beginning.
Foreshadowing for a future sequel?
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I remember that! I thought it was heavy-handed symbolism: our planet is like this fragile glass environment.
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I think your and oyce's reviews helped make sense of it, plus I had K. and W. to help me out.
Andy Lau is indeed lovely, as are all of the women featured. I think the white guy at the end was some kind of manifestation of 'a god' (maybe an extra-terrestial?) and was hijacking Christian symbolism rather than Being God.
Also, the story ended in the 'guy loves a woman to save the world' trope (cf. Altered States) - with women it's usually 'woman loves her child and dies to save the world'. The ickier subset is 'ugly guy has sex with hot babe to save the world' (The Fifth Element Phenomenon).
The 'hit by a bus' thing reminded me of the 'run over by a tank' scene in Crying Game, which made me laugh, though everyone else seemed more concerned about what pronoun to use for Jaye(sp?) Davidson.
Overall I liked it and could kind of make up a coherent thread (sort of) - were the guys who DIDN'T go along with the scheme melted down? Did it seem like Andy Lau was going to? Was it him in particular they needed, or just someone more (minyan?). Where did all of the other people in the cult COME from, was his one coworker always in on it?
Also I think all of the various theories (that spewed everywhere when they hacked into 'the Japanese's computer?) were there to give us a way to pick and choose, like, 'the god' guy attached to the one that the most people liked (like a poll or something)?
Anyway. I liked it. And him and Dead Girl deciding to love each other even though she could die (again) AT ANY MOMENT was sort of poignant for me personally.