Encounter

Fairly easy but enjoyable story telling. Riz Ahmed is always watchable and the two young boys are adorable.

Excellent on the direction and performances, just needed a little bit more from the source material to have a standout film. Storyline was fairly basic and familiar.

Good, interesting action, not the predictable ending.

I would still choose a shitty, lazy, bland, generic but proper alien flick instead of this sort of family drama built on daddy issues, war PTSD and "it's all in my head" gimmick. At least the cast tries hard to make it work.

I envy the little boy's accent and wow, the turning point of this film from a sci-fi to a family drama couldn't have been better.

The premise of an adult using a road trip to help kids navigate a crapsack world is similar to recent genre movies like Logan, Doctor Sleep, Midnight Special, or Fast Color. But a third into the story it changes into a psychological thriller with an unsympathetic hero; mixing Close Encounters's psychology with the Weiner kid tone of a Shyamalan work. And the ending's racial politics are terrible. Marginal recommendation for a skin-crawling opening & Riz Amed performance.