Saw this last week, as it seemed to be a movie that would play better on the big screen than on my big screen at home, and it's shelf life was running low.

Well...there's a reason why this had a cold reception and delivered so much less than expected, and at it's core, it's because they just tried to do WAY TOO MUCH.  WAY TOO MUCH is going on continually and the vast majority of the cast gets lost.

There are a few bright stars that manage to shine, like Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Angelababy, Brent Spiner, Deobia Oparei...Hell, let's throw in good old William Fichtner.  But Liam Hensworth, Jessie T Usher and pretty much everyone else just gets lost in the CG battles and 20+ different locations that "stuff" is going on in.

The alien ship was too big.  There were far too many wash and repeat battles going on. Too much stuff that felt either old or just downright bizarre.  And again, as noted earlier...just too much.

I didn't hate the movie and in the end, I was smiling, but for most of the runtime, I felt oddly bored and disconnected from the players.

Grade - C

I grew up with the first movie, so it will always have a special place.

Based on reviews, I expected this to be horrible. While it was not really good, it wasn't THAT bad.

I agree with Dreamscale, they did try to do too much. Too many characters, too many things going on. However there are rumors that this movie was heavily edited and that a lot of stuff that was filmed was left out. Many scenes that appeared in the trailers and TV spots are missing from the finished film. Maybe will get a director's cut or something and see what the movie was intended to be.

Wouldn't recommend anyone spending movie to see this, but if you catch it on TV maybe it's worth the look. I dunno, maybe it's the nostalgia talking.

Shame, the first one was fun. Guess that was expected when it takes 25 years for a sequel.