Then again, everything here is a huge cliche. If J.J. had turned this thing in for an assignment in a screenwriting class, it’d likely have gotten an “F”. The crazy
cosmonaut who speaks broken English and fixes things by hitting them with tools; the idea that lead character A.J. dies less than halfway into the movie (killing Owen Wilson was a good call, though. How did he make a geologist into a surfer dude?); the cheesy nuclear weapons with huge digital read-outs like we were on Get Smart! It’s all pretty awful. Every climactic moment is predictable. I almost expected Bill Pullman to show up in a cameo and give his rousing “Independence Day” speech near the end. The generic guy they’ve got in this movie is LAME. Pullman would’ve rocked it! Yet, I will sit there every time.
