Healthy mix of old and new

Rating: 9/10 (30 September 2009)

I started to watch this movie with caution: usually the over-hyped movies proved to be not so good for my taste. But not in this case. At the first 10 minutes I thought "Oh yes, this is the same old camera-shaker-amateurish-Blare Witchish/Cloverfieldish movie style" Then at the end of the ride I noticed that among others the style have shifted towards more "normal" movie . And I liked it. Then I have found in the story somewhat familiar traces (A.C. Clarke- Childhood's End, Alien Nation (1988)) but the movie has managed it to mix it just right with some new ideas- for my greatest joy at least there is a movie where aliens are not that overmystified and evil/ good- I could feel for them. In this movie WE are the bad guys. Of course this is not as black/white there are (2nd Wave of joy) personal development involved! I could feel the change in the main character throughout the movie. Personally I like those SCIFI movies better where there is more emphasis on character development than on CGI tricks. But just to contradict myself the fight scenes were quite nice too. So again this movie is great and has a healthy mix of old and new creating a really unique movie.
---- And now some (possibly) spoilers ---
I also liked this "hidden" goodies: mutilated cows (only crop circles were missing :-D ), weapons being Half Life/ Quake etc. like, battle exoskeleton (Starship Troopers 3, Mech Warrior etc.), but what I liked the most: at the end of the movie " Father and Son goes together to the bright "heaven" to save their race- in a cross shaped ship!!!