I’ve read the complaints from various sources that the plot seems to get lost in the special effects, I’m guessing movie audiences need to be spoon fed plot these days, but that is beside the point. This movie fails for one reason, the casting of Jaden Smith (aka Will Smith’s kid), as the rambunctious annoying foil to the grown up characters. I’ll just put it out there, I hate this kid. His performance should go down in cinema infamy with Darth Vader yelling “no” and those goddamn annoying robots from the Black Hole.

He does serve a purpose and is an integral role to the advancement of the plot. The argument could be made that Jaden’s character is the movies true villain. It’s not humanity destroying the environment, or Klatu’s robot homie (GORT), or even the “evil” US Defense Secretary. No, all these forces are basically doing what nature intended, Jaden’s character is the true personification of evil. From initially wanting to destroy the alien, to then selfishly wanting the alien to resurrect his relatives,  those come from fear. The truest act of villainy is dropping dime on Keanu after he saved your punk ass. “A hug from you could be a federal squeeze”. nobody likes a snitch.

“No he’s going home” …. that’s right, -$15