Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

The beginning is pretty good as the alien invasion is visually quite impressive. But then the talking begins and goes on and on and on without saying anything. And then it goes on some more.SciFy took a 225 page paperback and blew it up into a three-part, five and a half hour miniseries. Heavy portentous music plays throughout letting us know something BIG is about to happen. But it's not until nearly 4 hours in before anything does.Whether you think the ending is profound or jejune will depend upon your worldview. For me, it just showed the utter emptiness facing mankind without a Creator who loves and sustains them...

Let me repeat: Even worse than usual crap full of American self-righteous chest thumping descends from awful to absolutely despicable.This is another very deeply disturbing of how Americans(Israelis??) screw up every good SF book there is. See what they did to Nightfall. Only the P.K. Dick stuff seems to get good movies. Heinlein, Asimov and now Clarke: all of the Big Three have been thoroughly raped up the bum hole by Hollywood.This is a story written by a scientifically conscientious English gay writer, who had scientific training and integrity in his knowledgeable writing. None of HIS characters had all this emotional baggage, since that is NOT what the story is about.First American self-righteousness: The character Stormgren. In the book he was the secretary of the UN, but in the TV show he's some farmer from a flyover over state. This shoves the amateuristic idea down our throats that "regular" folks know better than experts, the same utterly stupid idea that got Trump elected. Like Obama said: "I prefer experts to pilot planes or do heart surgery". Yep, for those, as with EVERYTHING, you need seasoned and ooh scary elites, to do the job.Second American self-righteousness: The utter lame idea that we'd be interested in Stormgrens love life, that he can't move on from his first wife and that he now betrays, or cheats on his second wife, with his dead first wife.In general, all the characters are changed, and for the worse. Peretta is an insane woman, and it's utterly unbelievable she can get close to the second wife. The Greggsons are not meant to be suspicious provincialists, Rupert Boyce is not meant to be so arrogant and slavish, Milo was meant to be a colored South African called Jan, and why would anyone blame, least of all he, that the Overlords killed scientific curiosity? The situation did that, and people could have gone and studied other, non astrogation/space/rocket stuff. Jennifer is supposed to be a baby, and not some 10 year old actress pretending to be four years old, playing a Nazi type fascist Fearless Leader. It's obvious the writer doesn't have or know anything about kids, if he really thinks we're gonna buy this crap. If you can't find an actor to play a four year old, use CGI, it's hyper-realistic these days.In the book, 50 years pass before Karellen shows himself, which is two generations. But, because Hollywood demands you apparently can't just use actors for one episode, it got shortened to 15 years ... Once again, Hollywood greed screwed up a good story. Also, Milo gets saved immediately from a LETHAL bullet wound, but Karellen can't? And the Overlors are magically curing cancer by not even looking but Ricky can't be cured? Suuuuuuuuure! I get that is done to get even more emotional badly acted crap scenes, but WHAT IS THE POINT OF THAT?Anyway, while the first episode only gets screwed up by the spoilerish beginning, the 2nd deviates so far from the book it really stops making sense and has a lot of plot holes. The 3rd descends into some Lifetime emo crap about relations and sickening nostalgia.I was really looking forward to see scenes of the Children doing their "dancing" but apparently that had to make way for a total lie about New Athens and stuff.About halfway through the 2nd episode I, an atheist, began thanking "Gawd"(sp?) that my fellow atheist Arthur C. Clarke was dead long before they raped this book. Which is the only good thing about this all. Why can't we give minus numbers? Zeros?The Melancholic Alcoholic.

At first I refused to watch it. After years of hoping someone will produce a decent theatre version of Clark's masterpiece, we were give this. Take it or leave it. Judging by reviews and comments, I got repelled, but then decided to give it a shot. I can always forget the TV version and read the book one more time, right? Still, despite all the anti-propaganda, I was positively surprised. Of course I didn't like the unnecessary details, Americanization and invented plots and characters. I didn't like the simplified last part with the end that went by just like that... Nothing dramatic, nothing profound... unless you watch carefully. Prior reading of the book is recommended.My score is rather high because of two things: The fact that the story was finally put to screen, despite the weak result. Second, that it is possible to understand and see the whole story positively, as it should be seen. But you have to pay attention to the details. And not be limited by either your Ego or some imposed system ob beliefs.Judging by reviewers responding to either the book or the series, it is apparent, that the majority on this planet is perfectly happy with the current state of affairs and the course the Mankind is embarked on. I find it difficult to believe, that they reject the act of Ultimate evolution and transcendence and rather see it as a tragic event, act of terror, destruction of Humanity, while at the same time, quite probably pray to God every day in hope it will grant them basically the very same thing. In the book, as well as in the series, merging with god was a gift to our children. As a parent, I'd be a selfish ignorant, If I didn't feel happy for them.

The first of 3 discs was spot on--crisp, engaging, well produced and compelling. Truly promising with wonderful special effects. All of a sudden, as if the flush lever were hit, disc 2 swirls into nonsense and turgid drama, descending rapidly through disc 3. The story gets absolutely derailed with Hallmark moments and sappy "love" strewn about like cars from a massive train derailment. The mawkish teacle swirls into strident emotionalism, drawn out sentiment, pointless dialogue, and continuity disasters. Many of the cast are just plain annoying, especially Jennifer's mother, whose tremulous delivery was uncomfortably vulnerable and fragile to me. The series swaggers drunkenly from cloying to banal, from shock to boredom with plenty of nonsense thrown in. (The Devil visually is really amazing, though, despite an emotionally constipated demeanor.)