Big crowd pleaser that takes itself too seriously

Rating: Null/10 (11 January 2004)

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** When global telecommunications are disrupted by strange atmospheric occurrences, investigation reveals that they are spaceships positioning themselves around the globe and taking positions above the major cities. As President Whitmore attempts negotiations, cable maintenance man David Levinson spots a signal that appears to be counting down to an attack. When the attack comes, major cities are lost and military response significantly weakened and unable to defend. When the survivors come together and plan a fight back to defeat the attackers.
When this first came out I rushed to see it when it came out and was blown away by the spectacle. The second viewing (without the hype) revealed a pretty average film with big effects and, seeing it last night, the film doesn't really stand up to much seen years later - even the effects look dated. The plot is a simple remake of about 100 different sci-fi movies, all the clichés are there and in full effect. The film is basically in three parts: 1) aliens show up and kick ass, 2) humans wonder what went wrong, mourn and regroup and 3) the humans strike back on the 4th July.
Parts one and three both rely heavily on spectacle and, in fairness, it delivers this well - killing millions in grand ways and showing landmarks being destroyed with ease. The aerial battles are impressive but really just a montage of fast moving dots. It is unfair to compare apples with oranges - but the attack on Zion in Matrix Revolutions just p*sses on the effects here. Even without the comparison there is some pretty shoddy blue screen work that must have been hoped would be missed in the middle of all the action. Aside from that it does mostly look good enough to pass an evening.
The plot is, of course, utter nonsense and I won't even waste my time mocking the many, many failures in logic that abound here - it would be like kicking a child. However suffice to say that the finale is just plain daft and the whole idea of everyone in the world missing the attack signal except a cable guy who was married to one of the President's top people just smacks of very bad and lazy writing. The writing really is exposed whenever nothing is blowing up. The script tries to set up basic characters but only in the same way a disaster movie does - basic enough to care vaguely about when they go out in a blaze of supposed emotional glory. The section without explosions is awful and hard to watch - I couldn't care about characters that the script could barely be bothered to develop past lazy stereotypes and that is just the easy stuff. Worse than that is the horrible flag waving - lets not kid ourselves, this film is not about us, it's about US. In other words this is not earth v's the flying saucers but rather America versus the flying saucers. It is hard not to feel the need to suppress a gag when the President gives his final address to the nation and leads the world to defeat the aliens by following the US's example.
Of the cast, none are any good. Smith does his usual style stuff where he thinks attitude involves saying `yo ass' and `sh*t' as punctuation on his lines. Goldblum does his usual stuff of being smart and pausing a lot, but he is slumming here. Pullman plays the President that the US must wish it have - he is such an idealised character that I felt sorry for Pullman having to deliver a role that must have just baffled him in it's simplicity. Hirsch is such a cliché that it's almost offensive, while McDonnell is merely an emotional event rather than a character and Fox, well, she's black right? So lets have her play it with sista attitude - I love her work and it's sad to see her giving such a lazy role. Quaid is awful, Loggia is OK, Fierstein is horrible, Baldwin is OK and Spiner takes a small step from Data. Lets be honest - this film is not about the actors, it merely needed some big names to add to the box office draw (and the audience profiling could not be crasser than the casting of Pullman, Smith and Goldblum - so obvious it hurts).
Overall this is a big dumb blockbuster that will amuse the audience. However it is way too long and requires you to view without your brain. If you can do this then this is a big dumb sci-fi with more spectacle than anything else. It's just a major problem that the plot, characters and script are all lazy, crass, basic and unashamedly flag waving to the point that syrup was coming out of my ears. Vivica Fox looks great in stripper gear though!