The story is quite fresh, I went in not knowing anything about the film so didn't see the twists and turns that it takes coming, which is quite a rarity with movies these days for me. The effects both cgi and practical are well done for the most part, though some of the cgi does suffer from looking like really good cgi rather than something that's actually real. Overall though it's a solid bit of science fiction fare to spend a couple of hours with.
The negatives for me mainly concerned the child characters, they were badly written and it was obvious they were just there as plot devices to make things happen. There are 4 instances in the film where children were used purely because if they didn't do whatever stupid thing they did at that time then no action would have taken place, it's lazy writing 101. Plus they cried, constantly. The youngest one cried and whinged for probably 80% of her screen time and she had a LOT of screen time, and sure that may be the way a real child would behave if put in her situation, but hey, I'm watching a science fiction movie about an alien invasion with spaceships and laser guns, reality has already left the building so it wouldn't have hurt for them to tone down her reactions a little bit to make her less irritating.
There's an exposition dump in the 3rd act that goes on forever and the ending feels a bit anti-climatic (and setting up for a sequel that I doubt will ever happen), but I still gave this movie a 6/10, I enjoyed my time with it I think it's a solid 6 and I might have even given it a 7 if it wasn't for the annoying kids.
