A Disappointment for Those With High Expectations

Rating: 6/10 (30 June 2005)

As one of the many poor slobs who have been waiting eagerly for the release of this film for (it seems like) years, I must say I was entertained but expected more from Spielberg.
Okay, the special effects are awe-inspiring, but everyone expects that. I'd go further, though, and recommend this movie simply on the strength of the effects. I was wondering how Spielberg would render the "fighting machines," and my jaw dropped when I finally laid eyes on one.
Despite what some other folks have written, the screenplay really DOES follow a good deal of the original H.G. Wells novel in basic structure, with the exception that there's not a gradual build-up of suspense while the aliens hide in their "cylinders" and prepare to attack. Here, they simply strike, and we're off to the races. The Tim Robbins character puzzled me until I realized that he was supposed to be a composite of the unbalanced curate and the tough artilleryman in the Wells novel, a combo which, if you've ever read the book, you'd know is doomed to fail in precisely the miserable way it did.
Other troublesome areas in this movie include the handling of the Red Weed, which was never really explained -- what was it, and what was its purpose? Who the hell were those people on the ferry crossing suddenly attached to Tom Cruise and his kids? And of course, the biggest problem of all, endemic to alien invasion movies, but which I expected some solution to here -- just how is it that super intelligent, super powerful aliens who can travel across light years of space seem to have no awareness of an obvious Achilles heel which will eventually destroy them? Independence Day -- oops, we've got no virus protection for our ships' computers; Signs -- hey, water is kryptonite to our species but we're invading a planet that's 70% water. War of the Worlds -- well, you know the routine by now, Wells used it too. But in the 1890s, it may have seemed a little less like "deus ex machina."
Tom Cruise, yeah, he can act. He's good in this role. Dakota Fanning I'd like to smack upside the head and get those vacant eyes of hers rattling around in her skull a bit. If there were an Oscar for screaming, she'd get it. They should have waited a few more years to remake King Kong, she'd grow right into the female lead. The kid who played Cruise's son should have been incinerated in the first carnage scene, he was absolutely useless. He's only there to keep reminding us what a crappy father Tom's been, yadda yadda yadda.
Overall, it's worth the price of a ticket. In fact, I'm gonna see it again, but only because these kinds of movies are my favorite kinds of movies. You know, the ones where civilization is destroyed and millions of people are indiscriminately slaughtered by some pitiless force, but everything is okay at the end because Joe Average and his family are safe and reunited.