Ho Hum -- Inavsion By A Well Oiled Spielberg Machine

Rating: 5/10 (2 July 2005)

This movie is getting great reviews. I know that. I also know that it did nothing for me.
I wasn't scared. I wasn't thrilled. I felt I'd seen the movie before. I looked at my watch again and again. I was bored.
Steven Spielberg's careful touches are on view, but after seeing so many Spielberg movies, and three Spielberg movies about alien-human contact, I just felt like I was watching the standard issue, well oiled, Spielberg machine.
You have the collision of very average, working class people, with heavy Joisy accents, and exotic aliens.
You have the erasure of women, and the focus on the average guy hero, who has been abandoned by his significant woman, in this case, his wife, who left him and got knocked up by a richer, kinder, more handsome man.
You have fast moving action.
You have plenty of quotes from other movies. There is an alien-bicycle encounter, a quote from "ET," there are rampaging, numbed humans, acting like Zombies, a reference to George Romero movies. There are scenes that, in their lighting and composition, reference 1950s sci fi and film noir.
The new touch is the constant reference to 9-11. As with 9-11, attackers strike from the sky, causing large structures to tumble, but these attackers have really been "buried" among us all along, without our knowledge.
As with 9-11, the attackers and their reasoning are pretty foreign to us.
As with 9-11, crowds run through city streets, shredded office papers rain from the sky, survivors are coated in ash, and family members hang up signs asking for info about lost relatives.
As with 9-11, families that had previously seemed casual are suddenly drawn in more tightly together, and love is expressed.
It's all very, very well done, and I can't really tell you why I was so bored, so not scared, so not moved. Maybe because, at this point, it was just all too recognizable, even with the 9-11 touches, as a patented Spielberg product.