dumb, inane, nationalistic garbage

Rating: Null/10 (20 November 1998)

Sure, the special effects are impressive, but as with Godzilla, special FX alone to not a movie make! Boring, predictable plot, unfriendly aliens (hasn't it ever occurred to filmmakers that beings intelligent enough to have mastered interstellar travel are likely to have also mastered their violent natures?), and xenophobic, nationalistic Americans combine to make one of the stupidest, most predictable movies I have ever seen. It's sad to think how low we have stooped to be entertained. If you want to see an *intelligent* movie about extraterrestrials, watch Contact or 2001 : A Space Odyssey instead. Unfortunately, *intelligent* sci-fi movies are a rare phenomenon in today's atmosphere of overblown SFX, gratuitous violence, and general paranoia of things we do not understand.