* Man, this movie seems to have attracted a huge amount of commentary on social media - and I find it hard working out the numbers between those who enjoyed it and those who hated it.
* I predicted that those approaching from an American culture war Right point of view would find reasons to hate it - and I was very correct about that. X is dominated by hatred/dismissal of it - so much so that I suspect Musk might have even tweaked the algorithm to highlight it. But to be fair, there are some reviewers who I would presume are politically neutral or lean Left in their tastes who dislike it as well.
* Wait a minute, I guess I can check audience review numbers online. I see that on Rottentomatoes the critic reviews are running at 80% positive, and audience at 73% positive. Metacritic is running at 74% positive and audience at 5.2 (which seems low - but the break up is 33% negative and 38% positive and 29% mixed.) Not bad.
* I saw it last night with my daughter, and we both enjoyed it in somewhat trying circumstances (just about the most restless, toilet attending audience I can recall ever being in. Has streaming caused people to think everything about watching a movie at a cinema is just like watching a movie at home, so they not only text on their phone without compunction, but don't plan so they can avoid going to the toilet for two hours?)
I have some observations:
* Most of the criticism, in my view, comes from people thinking it would be a different kind of movie, and not judging it for what it is. People shouldn't take kids to it, not because it is violent or anything - it's just that it's a movie of mature themes.
* It is a quite "clingy" movie, in that I have continued to think about it a lot today, and not just because of social media. I do quite like that it is causing some debate, in a way. And I actually think I may need to see it again, with a smaller, less annoying, audience.
* I don't think it's perfect, and to do my own bit of judgement, there are background story elements that I would have liked emphasised more. Maybe some bits ended up on the cutting room floor, and an "extended edition" would add a bit more explanation.
* I think it is a bit of bad luck that it would have been written before the rise of "AI video for all", which has only been a thing for a couple of years, as there probably should have been a bit more emphasis on how that issue was not a problem for the disclosure.
* The ending did surprise me somewhat, but I thought it was fine.
* People might like to argue with me that I get hyper-critical about the scientific accuracy in some movies - like The Martian, Hail Mary Pass and Sunshine - but not in other movies. But it all depends on the story, and if you are dealing with speculative advanced technology, it often just has to be accepted uncritically as part of a story. Overall, the movie is thematically consistent with both Close Encounters and ET in that in all three, aliens have telepathic powers or technology. This makes accepting the technology in the latest one easier.
* There is something of an irony, isn't there, that there is a strong element of Right wing Christian commentary against the film (and Spielberg) on X in particular, when one theme in the film is whether disclosure of alien reality would hurt people's faith. Seems that if a mere movie speculating about that upsets them, they would have issues with alien reality!
I may come back to add more to this later...
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