Roland Emmerich makes Paul W.S. Anderson look like Andrei Tarkovsky.

Rating: 1/10 (8 December 2010)

If Ed Wood ever had any money, Roland Emmerich would give him a run for it. This film is the ultimate summary of everything wrong with Hollywood. It's as if Roland Emmerich deliberately tries to place every single cliché he can find in his films. And as another reviewer said, he's one of the few directors in Hollywood (along with Michael Bay and Paul W.S. Anderson) who have everything they need to make a decent blockbuster. A great cast (JEFF GOLDBLUM!), decent effects, and enough money at their disposal to feed Africa for a month.
OK, now the film.... Horrible No redeeming qualities to speak of. If six-year-olds were capable of having wet dreams, this would be it. Here's the entire film: Aliens arrive, Aliens attack, Will Smith's girlfriend, child and dog escape a massive fire-blast that kills hundreds of people in a subway (but the dog made it, thank god!....seriously, that must be the most cringeworthy cliché ever committed to film) a wooden door protects them from the nuclear heat blast, Will Smith beats up an alien and drags it around the desert for a bit, (I'm not sure who was in more pain during that scene, me or the alien.) they go to Area 51 where they meet some hermit, chronic- masturbator mad scientist, some other stuff happens, then the President of the United States gets up in a jet with the all the rest of the boys to take out the alien ship threatening the American way of life. YEE HAH!
The people who have a hard-on for this movie will tell me that I took it too seriously, but it's actually impossible to take this film seriously. It's like a bad joke, so bad that it's funny how horrible it is and then you pause and think about it and all of a sudden you realise how troubling it is that something like this ever was green-lighted by a major studio. If you haven't seen it, don't. If you have seen it and were as troubled as I was, you're not alone. If you saw this film and enjoyed it you probably laugh your ass off whenever you fart in a bathtub.
I heard that Emmerich is directing an "Avatar style" adaptation of Asimov's Foundation. I was mortified.