This is one of those movies that is made for popcorn eating and just sitting stupidly in front of the tube. No thinking required. Unfortunately, while fun, this movie is dumb.

Rather then go through the plot point-by-point, I'll give a fairly detailed outline of it. I'll also give you an idea of the characters in the show.

Capt. Steven Hiller (Will Smith) is a pilot in the Air Force (I think). He lives with a stripper named Jasmine (Vivica A. Fox) and her child (not his). He does eventually marry her, about half an hour before the show ends, but it's still a lousy relationship. Hiller thinks he's "all that" and goes around swaggering and mouthing off. He goes up against the alien invasion and happens to out-fly and outwit all the aliens in his first battle with them. He does crash and so does one of the spaceships. So, Hiller goes up to it, swearing, and somehow knows how to pop the cockpit door open. Then he proceeds to punch out the alien inside. (Later on you'll see the alien take out five or more scientists...I guess it was dazed from crashing and a punch to it's exo-skeleton suit put the creature inside, unconscious.)

Next is David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum). I'm not sure where he works, but it has something to do with satellites and it looks like a news office of some sort. He's an environmentalist and a genius. He figures out that the aliens have hi-jacked our satellites to communicate and coordinate a time to attack. He gets all this figured out in about an hour. And he's the only one on Earth that could figure it out. Later on he figures out a way to communicate with an alien "PC" and infect it with a computer virus. It's a logical assumption that there could be viruses for other technologies, but there's no way someone who knows nothing about these aliens or their technology could write a virus for their equipment. But it's a hole that the writer's used to get out of a corner when they weren't thinking ahead when writing this ludicrous tale.

Russell Casse (Randy Quaide) is a nutty drunk crop dusting pilot. He's got three kids, all of which seem to be hicks. Casse thinks he was abducted by aliens and is the butt of jokes in his town. This set of characters are the MOST annoying people in the entire movie. Casse is especially bad. He ends up sacrificing himself (albeit with much bad language) to save a military base with his children in it, but with his dying words, you lose all respect for him and his kamikaze mission.

The other major character is the President of the USA, Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman). I think they make a statement with this guy because they seem to focus on his lying quite a bit. Every time he chats with his wife, he's called a liar at least once. It's a subtle thing, but you can bet it's a statement about the White House. He's kept clueless about Area 51 by his men until it's almost too late. Then when they do go there, the President and his men don't have any respect for the studies that are going on there. Oh, it's a static-free (clean room?), so what! I'm the MAN!!! And I'm going in there. What if that ruined the research that would have saved earth? Well, he certainly didn't care. He does something like that at least twice...or tries to. Too much arrogance and stupidity for me. But I guess that's accurate for some Presidents, especially our last one, Mr. Clinton.

So, what happens in the movie itself? A ship that's about a quarter the mass/size of the moon comes towards earth. SETI detects it and sends out an alert. The spaceship stops and splits into a bunch of smaller pieces that are about 15 miles in area. They situate themselves above landmarks and world power bases and then at a pre-determined time, they blast them in some sweet pyrotechnics. The aliens want earth as their own. Their like locusts that come along and strip planets of its resources. How do we find this out? The president "mind-melds" with an alien. (The alien tried to control Whitmore) For some reason the alien just gives him his people's plans??? Whatever.

The Good Stuff:

The Bad Stuff:

Dumb Stuff:

Yeah, this movie was full of garbage. A poor plot that was riddled with holes. Enough cussing to make any current high school student feel right at home. And a woman that's a stripper and proud of it. What more could you want? Me, I want some wholesome clean fun. Watch Miracle of Morgan's Creek. It's funny and almost clean. This movie is good for some mind-numbing fun, though.

STORY:   

SEXUAL CONTENT:  

LANGUAGE:  (Yeah, that's more than my ratings thing lists, but it deserves it!)

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