THANK YOU. I couldn't agree more. When he tried to run away from his dad and sister by hitchhiking with the military, that pissed me off enough. But when he fought with his dad to let him crawl into the crossfirethat selfish, stubborn, annoying piece of beep pissed me off so much that I jumped for joy immediately after when I thought he died. Then they revealed at the end that he actually survived which ruined the entire ending for me.

Is that you
Robbie
?

the son was one of the worst characters in movie history. Everyone would have likely cheered if he was incinerated onscreen

I disagree and never saw him actually put the family in danger.
I also found his behavior completely realistic not logical, but realistic. I had many friends directly affected by the 9-11 attacks in NYC, and they either reacted in two ways (1) they did the best they could to get away from the attacks, along with their loved ones, or (2) they became obsessed with "getting the terrorists back." I felt a mixture of those myself from many miles away.
Both are very human emotions and I completely understand both. I thought Ray's son was a great character, beautifully acted we see his sweetness with his sister, his heroism and disregard for his own life on the ferry, and then his willingness to die to "get back at them (the aliens)" as well.
It's not the reaction I would have, but I understood it and found it very realistic and moving.
I might as well add that I like Dakota Fanning's Rachel too. The poor kid is put through nearly unimaginable hell (and she's a smart and imaginative kid to begin with), yet all people can see is that she's "whiny" or "annoying." Most kids, seriously, would be a bit whiny if faced with the end of the world as they know it, and it's implied that she already has minor anxiety issues. Yet her reaction to the first big alien attack is note-perfect to me the reaction of any human being watching something they almost cannot process.
I like both kids and their reactions, and think they're pretty realistic and well-done.
No worries if you disagree, but just in case others agree, you're not alone.

I keep thinking I'm a grownup, but I'm not.

Robbie did show some redeeming qualities when he helped people get aboard the ferry boat.
But his idiotic shouting about what they should do "if they had any balls" was just utterly idiotic.
I won't be as funny this time, but when Robbie started talking about his "balls," Ray needed to yank his shirt collar right up to his face and say, "The space aliens will charcoal broil you and your balls to ashes within 1/1000th of a second. Any more questions??"

4. You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.

I hated
both
of those brats.
I was rooting for the aliens to
vaporize
them quick.
The goldfish stays in the picture!

Also, didn't help that his acting (Robbie's) was horrid. I cringed at times watching his facial expressions.

Yes, me too.
I hate this character and any other of this film. Their developments were ZERO!!!! terrible, chicl. They have no deepness and complexity at all.

I just got through reading everyone's disparaging comments about Robbie. While I found his character annoying, I will say I preferred it rather than a son who cowered out at the first sign of danger. Yes he was stupid and not what you would call a model teenager but the kid had guts.
As far as Dakota Fanning, she played the part very good.

I disliked the kids more than I disliked Tom Cruise.

Ray let him go. I know Ray had to make a tough choice that instant cause some couple was running off with the daughter, but I still didn't expect it to go that way.
All I could think was: "Why doesn't he leave this moron and go take care of his little girl".

I just finished watching this movie again for the first time in a few years and I was just thinking about Ray's son so came here to comment. Here is the thing that really stands out to me:

• In the car scene, Robbie calms Rachel down from her panic doing the whole "this is your space" dialogue
• Anytime Rachel is frightened in the first half of the movie, she jumps into a Robbie's arms and he holds her
• In the plane crash scene, Robbie moves Rachel to the deeper part of the basement first
• When the Army trucks first drive by, Rachel yells at Robbie and says "Where are you going? Who will take care of me if you leave?"
• Other subtle examples of their closeness as siblings: Apparently they don't complain about sharing a room at their father's house. They take each other's side in arguments against their father, such as Rachel saying in the beginning of the movie "You'll never get through to him that way."
  So clearly, they have a close relationship and Robbie is her big brother/protector who makes her feel safe. It was a really cruel thing for him to abandon his baby sister and traumatize her/leave her to think that he was dead. Especially with a father he believes does not care about them. Seems like if you stuck to the characterization of Robbie, he would have at least had guilt or been torn about leaving her. It really surprised me the first time I saw the film when a) he was just so obsessed with joining the Army and didn't have a second thought about his sister's safety and b) Ray let him go. I know Ray had to make a tough choice that instant cause some couple was running off with the daughter, but I still didn't expect it to go that way. I expected to see Ray actually figure out how to do some real parenting and drag his son by the ear away from the danger. I just expected that based on the start of the film with him being a pretty lousy dad, I thought this would be his moment of character growth where he'd be like "I can't lose you Robbie" or something that would have still given the moment it's heart warming emotional cheese, but gone a different way.
  Seems like the writers decided Robbie had to separate from the family in order to achieve a) some real fear that he was dead and b) in order for the relationship between the father and daughter to improve. I still think Ray could have improved his relationship with both his kids at the same time when he was hiding out in the cellar with that crazy guy.
  There's a lot of parents on this board commenting "My kids wouldn't have acted that way blah blah." And I'm going to chime in with the same sentiments. It's hard to watch this and not think of my kids because actually, I have kids exactly the same age and years apart as Robbie and Rachel. So it was hard not to see my kids which got me thinking a lot about how they would act in a crisis. My son would have never abandoned his baby sister. But if he got such a fool idea in his head, I would have been dragging him by his hair saying "Don't you even dare think about it, are you crazy? Your sister needs you" etc etc. Sometimes as a parent you just have to take control.
  The dialogue when he does leave "Let me go blah blah" If I were in Ray's shoes I would have been like "You're the only one who can make your sister stop screaming!" LOL, or something like that. But basically "How can you think about leaving your little sister?"

He's an irritating character to be sure, however some people just are so I can live with it.
The only thing that actually annoys me about the film itself however is that he actually survives. It's quite clear he wasn't supposed to, however someone clearly had a change of heart when they realised what they had left at the end of the film.
Film should of ended with the entire town they were heading to being a smouldering ruin, the aliens are defeated, but at the cost of a near human extinction. Our very existence saved because of the planet itself, something we have no control over, which in turn we rape and take for granted every single moment. Would of been awesome IMO.
Unfortunately we got sappy Hollywood pap. Missed opportunity.

to be honest, No, I did not hate him as much as I hated the little girl. I know she is little and everything but she almost got them killed plenty of times.
They were lucky they didn't die. She kept screaming and being annoying the whole time. Ray's son was annoying but at least he knew when not to yell or when to stop,but that girl. So annoying.
The funny thing is that the crazy guy in the basement had the same exact ideas as Ray's son. Ideas about killing the aliens and fighting them, fighting back.

i hated them both

Yep Hated that kid and Fanning needed to pipe down! haha She's an Emo I guess ..

You're invoking two fallacies. First one is a composition fallacy. You make the broad sweeping generalization that "many" teenagers are like that based upon the few that you know. That's called a stereotype, or when used as an argument (like you are doing now) a composition fallacy. You can't use your own personal experience with a very limited amount of teens in order to make a generalization about them.
Second fallacy you made was a red herring. It doesn't even matter, the kid was still annoying, the fact that you know teens that are frigging idiots does not in any way invalidate or counter the argument that the kid in the movie was frigging annoying and stupid.

Have you ever met any teenagers? Many of the ones I know are just like that.(not all).
Their brains are still developing. We need to try to protect them while that's going on. Wish us luck.

yeah. spot on.
but, that's what you would expect. Mommy Daddy divorced. Daddy visits once a month or so. Daddy don't seem to care.
Why should he care about anyone/anything?

(Insane guy starts to smash windshield)
RACHEL: Can't we give him a ride?
RAY: Yeah, we can give him a ride at about 60 mph plastered to our front bumper as we bulldoze our way through these MFkers until we get our ass across the river.
(Insane guy continues to smash windshield)
RACHEL: AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
(RAY pulls out gun and blasts guy off windshield)
RAY: See? Now he doesn't need a ride any more.

4. You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.

Reading some of these comments really made me laugh. Came on here to see if anyone else found him just as annoying as me, glad I'm not the only one! lol

I think everyone disliked Rays som, perhaps someone should start a thread asking if anyone liked Rays son.

Oh god yha. I was thinking how I would have pushed her ass out of the car at that moment.

Agree, when the car gets swamped by people and she's screaming out stupid questions like "why is he doing that?" when the guy's trying to bash the windows in, "can't we give him a ride?"
She was young, but not that young. At that age I'm sure we would all realise exactly what was going on and scream at Dad to plant the foot!