Strong and Moving!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

I was just going to say "Screw this movie." and leave it at that but I can't. This crapfest is truly terrible on many levels. I watched this 3 times to make sure i saw it right,unfortunately I did. The main characters have gotten married without telling anyone.They tell the woman's dad(an army general) on the phone and then hang up on him. They apparently work for NASA or something,the movie is very unclear about that. Just like in a million other movies,aliens are invading. And just like in those other movies,they can speak every Earth language but can barely walk. Half of the movie is spent explaining why something stupid just happened,while the rest is spent sucking. The aliens send a message to the main character and he doesn't even know it.So they just attack. After the first attack they ask the general why the guy ignored their message. Then they give the earthlings months to organize a meeting but instead they build guns to fight the aliens. During the second attack,the people fake run in front of green screens and it's pathetic.They can't even run for real.A saucer hits the Washington Monument and as it falls it becomes a structure made from street bricks. The alien's guns usually make the target just disappear but sometimes they explode,awesome work. Ray Harryhausen should be ashamed of himself.

If 1950's schlock sci-fi is your cup of tea, you won't be disappointed here. This is what fans like myself live for and have to wait to see until they're aired in places like Turner Classics or in my case, Antenna TV this morning. Had to set the alarm for a 5:00 AM start too, so that has to tell you something.I don't know if Ray Harryhausen was proud of his special effects work in this; everything is still pretty primitive but for 1956 you probably won't find better up close and personal flying saucer work. Obviously the picture's use of the term 'Air Intelligence Command' can be considered an oxymoron today, but then again, it was explained that the scientists back on Earth hadn't been able to track any of the observation rockets sent into space to set up twelve 'moons' because they blew up and fell back down to terra firma. I don't think I'd want to be admitting that if I was in charge of the space program.Lots of goofy stuff here, one of the first instances was when Dr. Russell Marvin (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife Carol (Joan Taylor) perused the horizon for traces of alien activity and you had both day and night time sky at the same time! Flying saucer continuity took a hit as well, as depending on the scene, weapon fire either disintegrated it's target or blew it to smithereens. And even though they seemed invincible when attacking Washington, D.C., they were rather easily shot down by military rockets on their way there. Similarly, the alien life forms inside were impervious to harm when they weren't otherwise being knocked out by innocuous rifle fire!?!?Well look, you either go for this stuff or you don't. Hard to believe there were some intelligent sci-fi flicks coming out around the same time like "War of the Worlds" and "The Day The Earth Stood Still" that puts pictures like this to shame, but you can have a lot more fun with the silly stuff. For a double header treat, try catching this one back to back with "Teenagers From Outer Space". You'll never be the same again.

Dr. Russell A. Marvin and his new wife Carol encounter a flying saucer on their way to launch a rocket in Operation Sky Hook. Her father Brig. Gen. John Hanley comes to stop the launch. He's too late, and the rocket is later mysteriously destroyed. When a saucer lands, it is immediately attacked by the military. This starts an all-out fight.The acting is stiff. The dialog is clunky. There are too many scenes with weak actors doing unimaginative work with meandering melodrama and boring lines. The science is a whole lot of non-sense. But I love the 50's style flying saucer FX. It comes 5 years after the iconic 'The Day the Earth Stood Still', but this has more in common with 'Independence Day'. I just wish there was more good saucer action.

With a title like "Earth vs the Flying Saucers", my expectations were low. I expected poor acting, terrible special effects, bad lighting, etc... fortunately I was wrong. This is a surprisingly good movie! It does not drag anywhere - no boring side stories, no attempts at lame moral lessons for the audience; it moves right along from beginning to end. The "scientific explanation" for how their anti-UFO weapon works is a bunch of ridiculous mumbo-jumbo: "We try to interrupt their magnetic field by projecting a highly intermittent induced electrical field." Huh??? But if you can forgive this and the anti-UFO weapon itself, which resembles a satellite dish with a sheet metal cylinder welded in the center, then the rest is pretty good for 1950s special effects.The aliens in this movie are not coming to enlighten us. Nah they want to take us over and colonize the place for themselves! The mean-spirited aliens intend to invade Earth and conquer it, and the final showdown is in Washington DC. Out-of-control flying saucers wind up crashing into the Washington Monument and the dome of the Capital Building even! Plus the aliens blast everything that moves with their ray gun. Who wins? The robot-like aliens or us? Watch it and find out!