Darker and more impacting than the usual alien blockbuster but not as deep as it thinks it is and has a TERRIBLE cloying conclusion

Rating: Null/10 (25 July 2005)

Ray Ferrier is a New Jersey man working on the docks, living alone, separated from his ex-wife and two children. Rachel and Robbie come to stay with him for the usual few days and none of them are particularly happy to see one another. However their visit is livened up by an intense electromagnetic storm that is powerful, exhilarating and exciting. What nobody could have known though is that the storms are only cover for an invasion of an alien species, after all, the chances must be a million to one of such an event. As the alien craft rise out of the ground and begin cutting an unstoppable swath across the world, Ray takes his children and flees the city  not sure where he is going but just hoping to survive long enough to work something out.
With the names involved in this film you could be forgiven for expecting something more than just a blockbuster film and, in some ways you'd be right but then in almost as many ways you'd be wrong. In many ways this is better than a normal effects blockbuster, but mainly this is down to the fact that, since 9/11, few studios want to launch a massive film that takes pleasure in death and destruction in the way that Independence Day did. Instead this is much darker and more effective for it  scarier and tension than if it had been made with just spectacle in mind. It still delivers the goods in that regards but the effects are used well, producing scenes of destruction as well as a particularly impressive scene where the camera moves around a moving car in a way that would be impossible without computers.
The downbeat and dark presentation suggested that there is more to this film that effects and I was tempted to look into the subtext as I watched it. Here I didn't find much of interest and perhaps I was trying to see things that weren't there. With the obvious awareness of real events and emotions, the film seems to promote "everyman for himself", sacrificial heroics and other strange meanings that the film can't do anything with. Maybe I was expecting too much and really there wasn't anything below the surface but if there was then it didn't make a great deal of sense. Ignoring this aspect though, the film still works well enough as a dark "alien invasion" film that entertains and thrills without letting the audience actually revel in or remain remote from the death and destruction.
Spielberg keeps it moving well and gives the film an convincing feel; darkness and light are used well and the locations are good, certainly making for a nice change from us watching the usual landmarks being destroyed  his focus is more on the people and real communities. For most of the film he manages to avoid the mawkish sentimentality that invades many of his films but he gives it up right at the end; the final few minutes had me walking out of the cinema shaking my head. I'm not referring to the bacteria ending (everyone knew that was coming) but to the terrible family reunion scene that is so horribly corny and cheesy that it turned my stomach. Did we need it? It smelt like a tacked on ending from a test screening but part of me knows that Spielberg is probably as guilty as anyone. For such a dark and destructive film it was a terrible ending and the previous 110 minutes deserved much better.
Cruise is pretty good but he is far from being the ordinary working Joe that the script asks him to be. He can do the action stuff well and he is well practiced in acting alongside special effects but he is not a New Jersey shoreman! Fanning is as good as ever, convincing in her emotions but again perhaps a bit too precious to be a "real" child. Chatwin is OK as Robbie but his character made very little sense to me and he didn't seem to understand what significance he played either. The support cast are mostly screaming extras; Robbins is quite good but Robinson and Barry's cameos are minimised by the fact that they are involved in that terrible, terrible ending. As with all blockbusters, the effects are the stars and they are worthy of the billing.
Overall this is a good summer film that has a post-9/11 darkness and tone to it that some might find not quite conducive to enjoying the bangs that the summer audience usually want. However I quite liked this approach and found it more engaging and impacting. The effects are good and the performances fit in with them well but be warned  the cloying sentimentality of the last few minutes is really hard to stomach and will leave you with a really bad aftertaste.