I want my two hours back...

Rating: Null/10 (21 November 2005)

Yikes I began watching this with low expectations and I was still shocked at its poor plot integration.
My first thought as the ending credits began: "I want my two hours back"
The first attack scene is the most dramatic and pretty much the only good scene in the movie. About 10 minutes of excitement and the rest leaves you wanting. I had to watch this scene two more times afterward just to partially relieve my disappointment.
I read Spielberg's production notes and noted the following comments:
"We made a list of things we felt we shouldn't have in the movie," says Koepp. "No destruction of famous landmarks, no shots of Manhattan getting the crap kicked out of it, no shots of generals standing around a large map pushing ships with sticks into place, no TV news crews photographing destruction."
"And no Martians," adds Spielberg. "We've been to Mars and we know that nobody's there."
Well great, but he forgot two important facts.
1: We don't care that there are no "Martians" on mars. The same way we don't care that the Borg didn't really visit us in the 1950's to stop Zeframe Cochran from inventing "Warp Drive" or that its presently after the date setting of War of the Worlds and it obviously isn't going to happen its Science FICTION.
2: War of the Worlds is of global proportions and Wells tells it as such. Mass destruction clichés are expected but instead we get flashing lights through basement windows and Cruise's psychotic facial expressions as he runs from unseen doom WTF. The tunnel-vision style story telling (third person limited view) doesn't work for this type of story simply because a story of global proportions cant possibly come together from a single character's point of view  at least not without introducing some serious plot holes which this story already has plenty.
This should have been called "Raising Ferrier," or better yet... "The Blair Alien Project"
The actors of this story were done a great injustice, especially Dakota Fanning her character, Cruise's daughter, begins as highly intelligent and cool headed. Her maturity level seems higher than his, until after the first attack where she becomes a screaming doll with deer-in-headlights syndrome. Then there's Justin Chatwin who plays Cruise's son:
Cruise: "This machine it crawled out of the ground and started torching everything killing everyone." Chatwin: "What is it? Terrorists?" Cruise: "No, this thing came from somewhere else." Chatwin: "What do you mean Like Europe?"
Cruise should then reply: "Yes, Europe is overthrowing the planet with human-vaporizing lasers" *slap*
I've seen so many comments about how great the acting was in this movie Lets see Good acting oh yes, the first attack scene where everyone's running in terror. The ferry boarding scene where everyone's running in terror, and last but probably also least, the hillside military attack where three tripods blast through the blockade with roaring flames and everyone's  you guessed it  running in terror.
I've read about 100 reviews and I almost fell out of my chair laughing. I believe one user summed it up nicely with the subject of his post "Absolutely Crap." There were so many inconsistencies pointed out about this film and I'm not going to rehash them but I will say that I believe the reason for all of these inconsistencies is that Spielberg has attempted to "zoom" too closely into a story which doesn't posses enough low-level detail to appear solid under a magnifier. The result being a blurred mesh of unoriginality.
I'd give this movie two thumbs down, but its not even worth that much effort.
2 out of 10 for Tripod special effects.
If you haven't seen this movie, watch the trailer, there's nothing else to see.