Great special effects. Disappointing film

Rating: Null/10 (6 August 2004)

I went to this with a couple of mates just after it came out waiting to be enthralled only to be amazed. Not amazed at how good it was, but at how bad it was. OK, so it's not abysmal or spectacularly bad, but it is rather disappointing. The only really good thing about the film was it's special effects which were (as in every single Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin film except Godzilla) brilliant. A few famous faces were good too (Ian Holm, Emmy Rossum, Sela Ward), but that wasn't enough. You had to wait a good hour (maybe less) until the action came and it was a little too overlong for it's own good. On the whole though it wasn't bad but could of been better. **1/2 out of *****.