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I first encountered this movie as a child on VHS just days after I saw an ad for the upcoming alien invasion movie called "Independence Day", so "Roswell" ended up like a commercial for the then-upcoming ID4.

This was my introduction to the Roswell "event" and, perhaps more importantly, to the world of conspiratorial fallacies.

Technically speaking, this movie hooked me as a kid, and this is perhaps still the best-made movie about the so-called "real UFO incidents". But, even then, I noticed a narrative element to this otherwise B movie that seemed a bit too sophisticated for the makers of this movie to come up with on their own. And indeed, after I saw the movie JFK (1991), it was obvious to me they heavily relied upon the masterful editing techniques from it so much that I would label "Roswell" as "JFK" but with aliens - they even have the Depp Throat character that comes in the end and "explains" everything and peppers the movie with additional nutty conspiracies.

When it comes to plausibility, it was somewhat plausible when I was a dumb kid, but now it looks laughable. This movie actually debunks the whole alleged Roswell incident. For one thing, it's all supposed to be very secretive, and yet, as the movie goes on, you learn that pretty much everyone in town was involved with the conspiracy and thus knew about it (consequentially, just like in "JFK" it turned out that everyone killed Kennedy). It especially gets ridiculous at the end when the Deep Throat character starts raving about the whole supposed history of alien encounters where the Roswell incident is just the "tip of the iceberg", and we learn: there are hundreds of alien species visiting Earth from various planets and different universes, aliens also created the human race, influenced our history, created our religions, are now mutilating cows, but it's all so secret that anyone who founds out about this is promptly murdered. Needless to say that for all of this to remain a secret is just ridiculous. For one thing, we know from fossils and genetics how humans came to be, as well as how religions developed--or maybe there is a vast conspiracy of people covering it all up? Today, I just feel sorry for anyone who believes even a shred of the claims that this movie is making.

Watching this movie was like watching one of those movies that don't know if they are a comedy or a drama but in this case, it's either a thriller or a melodrama, hence the melothriller.

It starts with a family moving to another army base where the dad is going to work on a secret nuclear project. As we watch him doing the big experiment we expect the techno-thriller twist in the style of Michael Chrichton or Stephen King, but instead, the movie turns into a Douglas Sirk melodrama. It goes on as a melodrama where Jessica Lange plays one of her typical roles of a woman on the border of a nervous breakdown. As she finally has her breakdown, the movie becomes soapy with great misunderstandings and bad people pulling the strings to destroy this suddenly great love story. As the last part ensues, the whole melodramatic buildup is dismissed as some B plot in a techno-thriller. So, the movie is neither thrilling nor melodramatic.

Why this movie sucks is very simple: you simply don't care about the characters. And even calling them characters seems too gracious because they are just sketches. You do get the feeling that Apatow loves these people privately so he figured that we will too love them and just enjoy their presence. I mean, one of the obvious indicators is when you have Fred Armisen on board because to me he is the epitome of "winging it" when you don't have any idea of what kind of movie you are making.

This brings in another issue. What is this movie even about? It is so superficial and impatient that it is hard to tell. It tries to be about the quarantine but it is so removed from what actual people went through that you can't take it seriously. Or is it about filmmaking? But the characters seem to be so disinterested in the movie that they are making, with tired jokes like when the prop guy wants the actor to read his screenplay.

You almost wish you were watching those cheese dinosaur movies that the characters are making instead because at least you know what these movies are about.