woefully overrated movie. true sci-fi heads should watch Moon instead

Rating: 1/10 (22 August 2009)

Visual effects enthusiasts will love this movie. For me though the effects were nearly too good, causing the film makers to be lazy in the key areas of story and acting. The film makes very little sense and apparently tells us how intolerant humans are? Actually it doesn't, because there is no way we would invite an alien species onto our planet in the first place
The contained area they get to live in is not secure at all, and the way that native South Africans and aliens interact with each other to develop weapons and so on is ridiculous. These creatures would be 100% quarantined
A huge space craft hovers above our planet and yet there is no urgency felt and no international response to this landmark event; the whole business is administered by South Africans. Would the UN not be there or the USA?
How humans and aliens are able to chat with each other in their native languages also goes completely unexplained.
It's only a movie though right?
Okay so are people on this board who say this is a commentary about how white people treat other races serious then? how so? No in the real world humans, black/white/orange, are a lot more intolerant than depicted here. If you think this is some kind of racial commentary then you are a victim of marketing because that's what the film makers would like you to believe.
I've heard a great deal of awe toward the sound in this movie, especially with the creature voices. When I closed my eyes during this film, as I did several times, I would often hear conversation going on between humans and aliens. My first thought was how wonderful the human voice is. How subtle, tonal and rich it is. The alien voices were interesting for no more than 5 minutes and didn't develop dramatically. Ben Burtt et al created dozens of voices as good and better nearly a quarter of a century ago
The sound mix is distracting to the point where things coming out of the surrounds make no sense and completely detach you from the movie. An alien is in a cabin and outside only to the right we hear the main character outside, why? Is sound not supposed to be supportive of the story, the drama? if so why should sound distract us from that story
What a tremendous waste of great visual effects work. Because if they were there to support a great story, acting, character development then what an outstanding movie really could have been made
If you're a true sci-fi enthusiast do yourself a big favour and watch Moon instead