This is a cheap Canadian made-for-TV alien-invasion movie. It's cheesy and filled with clichés and cheap CGI effects.
As indicated in the camp title, it borrows heavily from similar Hollywood blockbusters. ("America under attack...on the fourth of July!") As in all these movies, we follow only the President and his family (and no one else), nerds play a big role, the government officials argue endlessly ("With all due respect, we don't have time!") and the women and girls are there primarily to be annoying.
However, it's not really that bad for all that. The alien drill-ships are sort of cool. There are a lot of explosions and alien ships whizzing around. This movie is worth about a 5.
Ryan Merriman (playing a fireman who ran into a SETI chick who had a machine that could stop the aliens) seems to be the stalwart hero of the film. As decent eye candy and a fairly good actor, he helped the movie's overall watchability. Tom Everett Scott (playing the president) and his son weren't bad either.
You see a lot of these movies on SyFy. I wish they would show decent programming, rather than new cr*p like this. How expensive can it be to show Star Trek re-runs?
