Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" gave the film his highest rating, declaring it the "apotheosis" of "Star Wars". Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" gave it a B+ for living up to its massive hype, adding "charm is the foremost of this epic's contemporary characteristics. The script is witty, knowing, cool." Eight years later, "Entertainment Weekly" would rate the film as one of the best disaster films of all time. Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" felt that the film did an "excellent job conveying the boggling immensity of extraterrestrial vehicles [… and panic in the streets" and the scenes of the alien attack were "disturbing, unsettling and completely convincing".