Reviews

I must say that i went into this movie with absolutely no idea what to expect besides the summary and a few reviews on here. Many were great reviews, and the one's that weren't focused on how morally unsound the characters were and didn't have a strong protagonist. So this is what i went into the movie thinking......man am I Glad I Did!!!! The above being said, the main protagonists of the film are instantly set up as antagonists as they mug a sweet girl (who later befriends them as they fight to survive the alien invasion). As the invasion starts off, you are instantly made full aware the these are Children. Riding around on bmx's and carrying on like a group of teenagers....Throughout the movie, there are more and more reminders to ensure you realized the age, social stigmas and attitudes prevalent in today's youth, group mentality, and the avenues it can take being unabated and unsupervised; as made evident as you witness the group spouting off the usual excuses to get their parent to let them stay out.

A big theme, in this movie also realizing your enemy. I am from LA, experienced more gang mentality than i care to remember and have been effected by it personally and on a daily basis. I also am in school to be a high school teacher (have wanted to for a long time). That being said.....The Biggest Problem Facing Poor and Impressionable Youth is the Inability to Recognize the Enemy (ie the ones who take jobs away, disenfranchise, starts wars that the poor will inevitably fight, set legislation that takes money from their schools, the media that make people generally ignorant of their world...etc); Not only was it evident in the groups main role-model, the gangster who lives in their building, selling drugs, trying to get one of the kids to sell, and talking about murdering people all day. This is a prime example, how this man, even while looking these aliens, these things that want to kill him, he can't take his sights off the kids who he feels wronged him......he couldn't see the enemy. It is also said straight forward while the group says audibly that those things were sent there to kill the poor blacks, showing the fear and confusion being poor and a minority and feeling like you have no real control in a world that feels like it's out to get you.

Conversely, by the end of movie, the group had made amends with everyone they had previously saw as their enemy.... the girl they mugged and the slightly effeminate kind-hearted boy they 'punked' at the beginning were now close allies as they come together to fight the real enemy......to the point that the 14 main character is willing to risk his life to save those few people who took interest in his life....and in some ways, the world he never felt apart of.

I am very disappointed honestly that a school teacher's (negative) review of this movie is getting the most attention and that the reviewer, being a teacher, couldn't see more in this movie than they did and perhaps relate a little more to these kids seeing as they deal with kids all day. I honestly plan on showing parts of this movie when I teach here in Los Angeles, California....Home of the Gangsta Mentality. I encourage all those who felt the characters were Impossible to like, to watch again and remember that there are too many subtleties in this movie to throw it out is such a manner. The symbolism and messages in this movie are too profound, and presented in a way that is too entertaining for this movie to be missed.... I could talk about what this movie meant to me for awhile....Just remember that the main character was robbing at night then going home to sleep alone in his spider-man sheets!!!!! How seriously can you take anyone who sleeps on spider-man sheets and not realize that they are just kids (a few of which turn out to be great kids). 'Ya Got Me, Fam!?'