Ok. Holy Shit. I recently read a Videogum blog about it being the "Heinz catsup" of movies. That's kind of fucking true. It was weird. After watching the movie and recapping the film with my roommate over a cigarette I felt a mental satiation. It was the first time probably since Children of Men (which, ironically is also the last great sci-fi film) that I left feeling full.
Ok now for the why:
-My favorite reason: it was basically a weird, enormous, cinematic bitch-slap to the U.N. (except they address it as MNU). They pull no punches of mentioning that the "MNU" is the second largest weapon provider in the world. The corruption of all characters involved just oozes out of the screen.
-Another reason: it depicts exactly what would happen. Aliens aren't the bad guys, aliens aren't higher intelligent beings, and aliens aren't the answer. Aliens are REFUGEES. The opening scene is a documentary style that reminded me a lot of footage of Chinese immigrants getting stuck inside a shipping container. The militarized compounds force out real employment or financial aide, thus the slum environment and the corruption. What I found even more engaging is how they tied the Nigerian organized crime into the story as a component fighting for possession of the hero and better weapons.
(p.s. it's really hard to not give away so much of this movie the trailer definitely puts you into a fog of ambiguity that doesn't really give much of a plot)
-Another reason: SUCH a good use of violence, action, and gore. I went over to my girlfriend's house last night after seeing the movie and I went on a rant with her roommate about how amazing it is to see all the things that I had just above mentioned. She then saw how excited I was and the roommate said "Wow I really want to see it now!" (which is totally understandable as she just graduated with a sociology degree)
Now was the moment that I realized that I was so caught up about everything else that I forgot how many awesome (and I mean awesome in the dude sense, it was awesome) the gore was. I won't go into detail because I would actually give away part of the plot but I will say this; lightening gun that makes people explode, a robot mech that fucks serious shit up, and an alien pulls someone's head off. Now you understand why this is a high stomach tolerance movie. This movie is a dude-ly grossout action flick combined with serious social statements.
This is what I'm saying about it being the Wheaties of movies.
Lastly: the main character. The main guy (who becomes the middleman hero) was SOO FUCKING GOOD. Starting off as an MNU agent, he's very squirrelly and nervous and rapidly becomes so completed at the end of the 1st hour of the movie. I mean, wow. You feel it like you felt the insanity of Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood.
A few characters were a tad cliché but you get so thrown off by the story's swing from one genre to another that it really doesn't take away from it.
It was better than Star Trek. It wasn't as perfect as Star Trek, but it so much more challenging to cinema's establishment than I've seen in a while. It melded so much more together.
