I'm not from the US and doesnt watch the original so I dont know why they dont like it...
(spoiler)
It's a good message about an alien trying to save earth from human.
The alien doesnt have feeling about caring about kids or old ones because it only sees one species as a threat.
Soon at the ending, he eventually feel the kind of helping a complex species when "the kid almost fell", conversation with the Profesor about life can change when in a brink of a danger and also the speech from other alien that live long time (the old man at McD).
There's a lot of Hollywood cliché.
But from this you can imagine in reality how the world would react if an unstoppable godlike creature come to save earth from us. So its an interesting concept.