Mhhh...just came back from this. Wanted to watch it on release day but things didn't line up.
In general I view Spielberg as the best director alive and working today. So that up front. I also went in insanely hyped and intrigued. Especially because of the interesting lining-up of actual UFO files currently being released by the US government in increments and this film's release. The production of this film was also incredibly secretive, even more so than usual for a Spielberg project. So all of this had my anticipation through the roof. Spielberg tackling the current UAP phenomenon, let's go.
I honestly don't know what to think about this film at the moment. I know I'm gonna watch it again when it comes out on physical. But right now I'm kinda torn. Not the least because our screening room was filled with morons.
SPOILER: One thing I gotta say, when they showed the security camera footage of the alien bodies in the morgue-esk facility, my anticipation kind of deflated completely in that moment. The other clip showing the bad treatment of the alien by the humans in was even worse. I don't know. There is something goofy about the depiction of those aliens: stereotypical, not inspired design-wise and bad CGI or straight up looking like a kid wearing a Halloween costume. Spielberg can do better in that specific department. The aliens in 'War of the Worlds' looked way more real, way more intimidating in a way, way more intriguing.
Also, why are there CGI animals when they could have used animatronics? Especially the fox looked abysmal. For a film that is as dependant on the emotionality of the moment as this film, CGI just doesn't cut it. And I feel like Spielberg should know that.
Same with the train sequence. If anyone could pull off an action scene like this in live action, it would be Spielberg. But no, just CGI everything, the car, the train, the tracks and so on. It is an exciting sequence, no question. But all the time I was thinking "this would be mind blowing as an old-school Spielberg action set piece shot for real". And they can't tell me that it would have been a lot more expensive.
At the end of the day, I need to see it again to really form a better opinion. It's Spielberg, and I want to love it. But I just don't at the moment. Maybe I was influenced by the retards in the theater to be annoyed by the film, maybe my expectations were unrealistic, maybe I actually don't really like it in the end, who knows. I'm glad the film made 90 million on the first weekend though. I only saw thumbnails of the youtube hater bubble online "Huge Flop!!" "It's over for Spielberg" and dumb sh*t like that. Getting back 80% of your budget in 3 days doesn't sound like a huge failure to me...