restless reformer

***WARNING: Movie reviews at this blog may contain spoilers***

Ok, so it wasn’t boring.  But it wasn’t good either.  After movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, one would expect more from Spielberg.  If you saw the first half hour, you saw the rest of the movie, really.  How many times can you watch the main characters almost get killed by aliens and then narrowly escape before you start thinking that taking a break to get some popcorn would not be such a bad idea? 

On top of the fact that an alien movie is bound to be "unrealistic," all sorts of incredibly silly things happened.  My favorite was when a crashed plane managed to destroy an entire block, but the van was spared (and there was a convenient little path through the wreckage for the van to drive out).

On a more positive note, Dakota Fanning gave a tremendous performance.  There were some cool special effects.  And Tim Robbins was kinda freaky.  But that’s about it.  I’d recommend waiting for DVD and saving that ticket money for multiple viewings of Goblet of Fire and Chronicles of Narnia come winter.