Great action, annoying characters

Rating: 3/10 (24 July 2006)

The special effects were spectacular, and the action sequences mostly riveting. But the characters of the two Ferrier kids were so annoying that it pretty much ruined the movie for me. Dakota Fanning may be an adorable little girl visually, but Rachel Ferrier was probably the first little girl in a movie I actually hoped would get captured and eaten by the aliens. She's a screamer and tantrum-thrower, and intellectually incapable of learning what the children of Baghdad, Beirut and Bosnia figured out like lightning: in a war zone, you become a mouse - neither seen nor heard. And son Robbie is little more than a collection of every single emotional hangup possible in a child of divorce (especially when the custodial parent is blue-collar and the non-custodial stepparent isn't). Tom's really trying to reach his ex just to get rid of these two brats.