an ax to grind

Rating: Null/10 (24 December 2001)

I've waited a long time to lamb baste this movie in a public forum. I hated this picture. Hated, hated, hated this picture. And everyone I have ever met loves this picture. Loves, loves, loves this picture. There is a very precise and scientific reason for that... Everything everyone knows is wrong! Let's look at this differently. Let's look at the facts here (and I'm going to point out some things that may spoil the movie for you if you have not seen it, but that's ok... You don't want to!):
1. The plot is absolutely paper thin. Aliens invade earth (the aliens have no intuition on human culture, but they know what tourist landmarks to hit), and Americans fight them. That's it! Roll credits, and it's over. 2. This movie follows a time worn cliche of event location. If something big happens in an American film, it has to happen in the United states exclusively. not in the Virgin islands, not in Switzerland, not even in Canada... America. And, of course, if there is a problem, the Americans will be the only ones able to solve it. 3. Then, if Americans are going to solve it, it's going to be a band of stereotypes. This includes a rural every guy, the know it all scientist, the president (who flies a jet, no less!), and Will Smith. 4. In a really bad mix of product placement and worn plot device, an Apple computer is used to destroy an entire alien supercomputer... That destroys an entire alien superstructure... That destroys a multi million dollar movie super budget. 5. The aliens are never explained! why do they attack Earth? Who knows, but if it looks groovy, who cares? Absolutely no thought is put into the aliens. The only interesting thing about the aliens, perhaps the whole movie, is that the aliens work in space suits that are aliens in themselves. But once again, it is never explained. And the aliens are the atypical asexual non-clothed bi-pedal beings we have come to expect in sci-fi flicks. 6. The design of the alien hardware follows another worn cliche, of design following that of the decade that a movie is made. In other words, being a 1990's movie, expect lots of chrome (ala Terminator2)and compound curves. The 'mother' ships suffer from 'CG-Itis', a curious aftereffect of over indulgent CGI use. The result is a ship that looks like a pizza pie made out of glitter stucco. 7. Same guy who made this movie made Godzilla (American version...which takes place in America, not japan... see a link here?), and scads of other filmed explosions disguised as movies.
And there's much much more. But given all that, people still just eat up this movie. And of course, as the response, Hollywood makes more just like it. In other words, people have turned into sheep with no identity or taste, with Hollywood eager to cater since most of the folks there are interested in film as profit and not art. Rent this movie at own peril.