A faithful and stunning revisit to an earlier age of science fiction

Rating: 8/10 (1 July 2005)

Spielberg learned all of the lessons he would need to make an excellent alien invasion movie from Signs and his Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This movie seems reminiscent of both of those movies in many ways, but it is not simply a combination of the two, either. It is also an effective and modernized science fiction story for one of the oldest science fiction stories in the genre: the hostile alien invasion.
By focusing the camera on Tom Cruise and his dysfunctional family, the movie takes from Signs its personal feel, although the movie also manages many scenes of sweeping drama on the scale of such flicks like Kingdom of Heaven or Ben Hur. These scenes in particular are aided by subtle and stunning visual effects, but beyond all of the high-tech wizardry that obviously went into the movie, Spielberg's skill with lighting effects was maximized to the n-th degree. Remember the kitchen scene from Close Encounters combined with the dark moodiness of Jurassic Park and you'll get the gist of it.
There are some serious problems with the movie that should not be overlooked, despite all of the aforementioned awesomeness. I take serious issue with the manner in which the aliens buried their war machines on Earth tens of thousands (maybe even millions) of years ago and then proceeded to enter them via riding lightning bolts from the sky down into the earth where they are buried. It's cool, sure, but from a scientific standpoint there are much easier ways, like H.G. Well's original idea (one of the few departures the film makes, and not coincidentally one of its weakest points) of dropping the war machines to earth in giant artillery-shell-esquire spaceships. Duh. But instead there is the lightning, a phenomenon which doesn't even "push" things and therefore provides no help to the alien drop pods "riding" them down. Ridiculous science, if cool to watch. Also, the movie seemed to end abruptly, almost as if Spielberg said "ok, this is cool enough and I have other things to do, let's start the end here" and went with it. Not to say that these things ruin the movie - there is so much more good stuff going on that I don't have the space to write about - but it is there.
Perhaps the most important thing about this movie, however, is the manner in which it melds new and old concepts of sci-fi together. You have all the character complexity and general concern for technological feasibility (the aforementioned aside), combined with things like human-disintegrating death rays, energy shields, and soulless alien conquerors. What's more, the subtle ways in which the special effects introduce these things make it seem totally acceptable to the modern movie-goer. It is great to watch it all unfold and not feel like I have to suspend belief on purpose.
Here you have a well-thought out alien invasion movie with good acting, few obviously moronic science moments, and great cinematography. Go see it, go enjoy it.