Unwanted poor remake of the 50's classic

Rating: 2/10 (10 April 2011)

This is another adaptation of the HG Wells book of the same title. The movie starts out with a single father Ray Ferrier (Cruise) getting off work to meet his ex wife who's bringing him the kids for the weekend. We see right away there are family problems, annoying young girl Rachel (Fanning) and her older defiant teenage brother Robbie (Chatwin) who both, have their differences with him. The ex goes with her hubby to Boston, who cares right, but it comes into play later. In the meantime while around the house the TV keeps showing the news about EMP bursts that have disabled things around the globe. Not long after a "storm" hits New Jersey, lightning strikes a spot and from which emerges a walking machine of some sort. The machines are "tripods" that have tentacles and death rays, from which they start to obliterate people on the spot. If the ray hits you, you are basically turned to ashes (Spielberg had to reference the "bad" atomic bomb dropping in there huh?) So Ray takes his kids, who are complaining the whole time with some supplies and a hand gun. Spielberg won't allow him to use it right. They find a van that works and make their way to Boston, while dodging the alien onslaught. The van is eventually taken by a hostile crowd, Ray attempts to use the gun, but another is pointed at him, he loses the van, but some other guy kills the thief with his gun. Eventually the military gets manhandled (laughable) by the aliens and the family takes refuge in an old farmhouse with some crazy guy Harlan (Robbins). In another reference to the 50' film, they are stuck in the farm house with the tripods camped overhead. They send down the infamous snakelike camera to check out the place. After that the aliens come down and play around till their called back. Harlan is about to snap and give them away, so Ray kills him away from his daughter. However, they are spotted, the girl it taken up with a tentacle, but Ray attacks the ship and is also taken up. It shouldn't be hard to know what happens next, they are now inside the force field and when they suck up Ray he takes some grenades and the ship blows up and they escape. By the time they reach Boston, the Walkers are now dying, the aliens can't handle our germs, atmosphere and what have you. The arm comes out at the end as in the original movie and he reunites with the family at their house that miraculously has escaped major damage. Grand pa and ma are Gene Barry and Ann Robinson from the original better film.
This movie was not much of a disappointment to me because I didn't expect much, for a couple of reason. 1. Remakes are almost always poor compared to the original. This is no exception. The original film was better in every category, including special effects if you count them for the day they were made. The movie still stands up today. And 2, I was never a fan of HG Wells's book, the 50's film of course changed things from the book as is always done and improved them vastly for the time it was made. The tripod walking machines I always thought were rather dumb and the book was not nearly as good. The purest Wells fans I'm sure love this one because its more fateful to the book, granted that is largely true, but since I thought the book was inferior to the 50's film, I would not like this version.
Furthermore, it suffers from what a lot of new films do, much too long and the personal problems they invent for the main characters, which distract from the film and are often boring and painful to watch. For this we have single father and two annoying kids. The whole nonsense with the family should have been entirely cut from the film. The original does not have such stupidity in it. The acting from Cruise on down is not great and the girl is maybe the worst. The kids are some of the worst parts of the film. Throughout the film Cruise is trying to reconcile with his son, while the stupid girl screams, trust me you'll want them all to die. Plus the plot is bad, supposedly the invaders planted the machines millions of years ago only to come back now. What for? It would be easier to take the planet when we weren't around and the same if not worse germs would still be around.
Also Spielberg's liberal nonsense is shoved down normal people's throats for propaganda purposes. There are many instances sprinkled about while referencing the original film, all done poorly. The taking of the car mimics the original part where Barry is taken from his truck that has scientific information to stop the aliens, here they just lose a car to a mob, that also tells us guns are bad. The farmhouse may be the best part in the film, but even that falls apart, Robin's creepy character has a shot gun the whole time waiting for the aliens, yet he doesn't load the gun until they are down in the cellar with them and could hear him cock the gun? Robins also mentions "occupation which never works", Spielberg takes another shot at America and the US military, he is so loathsome. And of course do all the homage you want, but you left out the nuclear bomb we drop in the original, only to have it fail. I'm sure Spielberg hates nuclear weapons and didn't want it used in the film. With very few redeeming qualities to mention, this movie is near the bottom and certainly should not have been remade. There are no powerful scenes, unlike the original. See the original,it's a superb film, this is just summer trash, 2 stars.