Armageddon Time

Grade: C+

The worst movies aren’t necessarily the worst movies, but rather the ones that either a) inspire apathy, or b) I almost like but don’t. Armageddon Time, opening today, falls into both categories. It doesn’t explore the themes or highlight the characters I most wished it would have. It takes the path of least resistance, and settles into your standard paint-by-numbers coming-of-age tale.

Writer/director James Gray’s filmography includes The Yards (one of the worst movies of 2000) and Ad Astra (one of the best movies of 2019). Armageddon Time follows a Jewish family, the Graffs – primarily young Paul. It is 1980, and Ronald Reagan (a schmuck, according to Paul’s dad, Irving) is about to be elected President. Paul and his best friend Johnny (an African-American kid raised by his grandmother) get in trouble at school, so his parents put him in his older brother’s private school.

1980 was a different time. Parents and teachers could get away with saying and doing so much that wouldn’t fly these days. Beatings and whoopings at home were commonplace. The unfortunate term for black people was uttered as casually as if you were saying somebody had blue eyes. The film briefly touches on white privilege and racial implications, and those scenes are among the best. What I wish it had leaned into more was the religious side of things, and their lives, experiences, trials, and tribulations raising a family and growing up Jewish.

Anne Hathaway, from The Princess Diaries, is now old enough to play a mother of teenagers. She is a stand-out, and I wanted more of her, and especially Anthony Hopkins as the kindly, elderly Graff grandfather. His Oscar-winning performance in The Father made me start to cherish him all over again. I loved every scene he was in, and wished there was more, but the screenplay puts a predictable end to that possibility.

The ending is abrupt, and made a fellow audience member audibly say “That’s it?” My three-word review of Armageddon Time would be “Eh…not quite.” Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, out later this month, looks like it will cover some similar ground. Let’s see if it’s more satisfying and successful.

Grade: C+