Yuck!

Rating: 2/10 (11 July 2005)

Although it is obviously well made, I found this film an extremely unpleasant experience. It's obvious 9/11 imagery and a premise based on basically threatening a cute little girl with gruesome death for 2 hours just did not appeal. Additionally, the lack of almost anything new to the story--no new twists--really left me wondering what the whole point of the exercise is. Does Spielberg need to waste his time with this? Does Dreamworks need a quick cash infusion, or what? That said...I think that all of the acting was top-notch. Dakota did a great job with being threatened with gruesome death for both of its hours. Tim Robbins also stood out. Cruise delivered a very believable and nuanced performance. All the technical credits were solid--except that the alien craft bore a striking resemblance to those in Half-Life 2. However, all the positives give it a one star bump, because of the aforementioned unpleasantness.