Underrated family popcorn movie

Rating: 10/10 (11 February 2006)

Cheese set aside, ID4 is a great family popcorn movie. Not too scary for the little ones and still enough exploding landmarks to keep even the most twisted inner child entertained for the 2 1/2 hours.
No, the Empire State Building wasn't portrayed technically accurate, and you can see strings attached to the aliens in a couple of shots, but they look more realistic for the closeups than some Shrekian Toy story "Space Edition" like some of the other sci-fi movies of late.
CGI aliens all look like video games instead of movies and ID4 really had that slimy, natural alien look and feel judging from the generous heaping of oozing secretions while Data does his Alien Autopsy (Brent Spiner from Star Trek NG plays one of the socially inept scientists living sheltered at area 51).
I've seen ID4 hundreds of times, and it is still better than the remake of War of the Worlds done almost a decade later.
-HW