Suspenseful Feel Good Fun!

Rating: Null/10 (26 May 2001)

I am just shocked at all the negative reviews by pseudo-intellectuals saying the film was heavily flawed, incomprehensible, devoid of any merit, and "lame", to quote a few. What were they expecting? A remake of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Sure, I am not going to pretend the film does not has many glaring weaknesses. The plot is hardly original; its execution is even less inspiring. Roland Emmerich goes out of his way to use every cliche in the book, over-sentimentality, weak, flat characterizations, incredible jumps in logic and reasoning made on the viewer, and the use of special effects to overcome these shortcomings. But what some of the reviewers seemed to have missed, and its there as substantiated by the huge popularity of the film, is heart. The film has a lot of heart. It makes you feel good after watching it. And although that quality does not make it a great film, it certainly makes it a good film in my book. The film is vastly entertaining, very suspenseful, a delight for the eyes with dazzling special effects, and even has some dialogue that does just rise above its hackneyed origins. The acting is adequate all around with no one pulling off a great performance, but a few doing marvelous jobs with what they have to work with. Judd Hirsch easily out acts his fellow colleagues as a Jewish father with a gift for common sense and lack of tact. Jeff Goldblum also gives a pretty good performance as his son. Yeah, Will Smith is just Will Smith..lots of one liners and little meat so to speak. But he is bearable. Watch for Brent Spiner in an outrageous role as a hippie scientist. His performance is a real hoot! If you are looking for philosophical science fiction, this is not it. See Starship Troopers(a great film). This is just good old Americans against the universe stuff, lots of action but little substance. But whatever it may have as its faults, it is a fun, happy, sad, charming, engrossing film to watch...time and time again.