This is neither a great scifi film nor the worst ever made. Come on folks, have a little balance in your reviews.
If you're going to watch a teen-oriented movie, don't condemn it for being teen oriented. Seriously. That's like the atheists who watch religious films and then slam them for being faith oriented. Don't be goofy.
This film has some unusually good directing and filming. The plot is a little thin and it's a little slow-moving, but it doesn't have "no ending" as some claim here; it's just not the tucked-in-a-box ending they wanted or expected.
The characters were well-designed and the actors played the parts well. For once there was no cliche evil clandestine governmental conspiracy plots going on. This is a first-contact story without all the neat and tidies. That's based on simple common sense: If first-contact occurred with an alien species, what makes us think we would have anything at all in common as a starting ground?
This is (as was fully declared from the beginning) a teen romance film. No it didn't all make sense. For example... how is it he starts out selling jewelry in a pawn shop for $20 because "we need the money"... then later they have enough cash for pizzas and medicine and bus tickets and whatever they need? So yeah, it could have been better thought out.
So no, not the best movie ever made, nor the absolute worst. It's standard scifi.
I found the watch enjoyable, not disappointing at the end, and basically entertaining. I give films 5 stars for "mediocre but tolerable". This one gets a 6. Not quite good enough for anything above that, but worth the watch.
