Starring Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler, Ben Affleck, Will Patton etc etc. Rated M.

E=MC2. A classic formula. Armageddon. A Hollywood formula. The difference being, the latter doesn't work.

You can gather all the high-profile Hollywood stars you can afford and add truck loads of special effects in an attempt to present the ultimate disaster, but if the celluloid is holier than a Swiss cheese then you're wasting your time. Or are you? Obviously, with an advertising budget as big as an asteroid, you can still draw the crowds in droves.

In this case I get the feeling that much of that advertising budget could have been better spent on the special effects. The computer-generated kind are obviously far cheaper than the real ones. Otherwise perhaps we might have seen zero gravity in outer space. Instead we are dealt the crap excuse that the Mir Space Station can be spun to create artificial gravity, making it easier for visitors to work.

And for an asteroid with only 1/5th the gravity of the moon there was a distinct lack of bounce in the gait of those sent there to save the world.

What about the surface transport, adopted for the job from a future Mars explorer. Looks the part, but why the hell was it armed with miniguns? Has NASA discovered life on the red planet after all?

After using skids to land on the asteroid, RAEME were obviously working hard in the bowls of the craft during the return flight to fit a good set of tyres all round for touchdown on terra firma.

And they are just a few of the holes you could pick in this movie.

I went with the preconception that this would be another in a long line of American crap we have been served with in recent times. And with that in mind I figured I could gloss over the apple pie, red white and blue, God bless America, sentimentality and just enjoy the spectacle.