Once in a great while, a small, quiet film comes along that truly touches the soul. A film that takes the audience on an emotional journey of self discovery. A human story that illuminates the human condition.

“Armageddon” is not that film. “Armageddon” is a movie that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go for two hours. It’s a movie so full of thrills and excitement that it is the cinematic equivalent of an overdose. Strap yourself in for this one, because you’re in for one hell of a ride.

See, an asteroid the size of Texas is hurtling towards Earth at 22,000 miles per hour. To stop this global killer, which would wipe out all life on earth, NASA has only one option — to send a crew up to the asteroid, drill an 800 foot deep hole in its surface and detonate a nuclear warhead to split it into pieces.

Now, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Hey, wait a minute! Wasn’t this movie out a couple of months ago and wasn’t it called ‘Deep Impact’ then?”

“Armageddon” couldn’t be further from “Deep Impact” if it tried. That movie basically involved millions of people standing around and waiting to die. It also had that unbelievable tidal wave scene, which looked like a papier-mƒch‚ model of New York city getting wiped out in a kiddy size wading pool (which was probably how they did it).

Plus, “Deep Impact” didn’t have Bruce Willis, one of the greatest action stars around these days. In “Armageddon” he is Harry Stamper, the world’s foremost deep-core oil driller, who is enlisted by NASA to stop the asteroid. In short, he is ready to kick some asteroid ass.

Stamper’s team is a rag-tag bunch of guys called upon to save the world. There’s the fat slob, the big bad-ass black guy, the surfer dude, and a wacky Russian. Steve Buscemi does a great job as the crazy guy, getting plenty of laughs as he slowly loses his mind in space.

“Armageddon” does a good job of balancing the extreme action with moments of humor. The drill team’s demands for doing the job (where they demanded the return of 8-track tapes, permanent tax exemption and to be told the truth about Kennedy’s assassination) was a riot. The training sequences, where the drillers have only a few days to become astronauts, are also absolutely hysterical.

The story is largely predictable, but that doesn’t really spoil the fun at all. Did you actually think they would really let Earth get destroyed? Sure, they may wipe out Paris and China, but overall the planet will survive. Still, there are some unexpected surprises along the way, things even I didn’t see coming.

The only major element of the movie that didn’t work for me was the love story. A movie like this has to have a human side; otherwise the action doesn’t matter. I just didn’t care about the two lovebirds here (Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler) largely due to the miscasting of Tyler in a movie like “Armageddon.” More affecting, but barely touched upon, was the story of one of the team member’s estrangement from his young son.

Also, the scenes of the masses around the world gathering to hope and pray were super-cheesy. They looked more like scenes filmed for a Coca-Cola commercial. This feeling was reinforced in one bit where a Coke billboard was clearly visible on the main street of Small Town Clich‚, USA.

But those few, minor problems did almost nothing to detract from my enjoyment of the movie. Themes of family, duty and patriotism help ground the movie a bit, which involves the audience with the events even more as they develop. I must admit I got a little choked up in a later scene.

Finally, here is a huge, big-budget summer action movie that doesn’t disappoint. “Armageddon” is the best action movie I’ve seen in years and is the perfect summer movie event. In fact, I plan to see it again. And again. And again.

4 1/2 stars out of five

Mike Milik is a senior in advertising from West Des Moines.