Whoooosh! With our de-clothing ray!

Rating: 6/10 (30 August 2005)

See, the problem with films these days is too much of a good thing. Too much CGI, too much violence and, in this case, too much sickly sweet goody-goodness for its, errr own good.
It started off weakly, with Morgan Freeman's rendition of the now famous opening narration. Morgan Freeman is a great actor, don't get me wrong, but he sounded bored whilst reading this. Hardly the commanding voice of Richard Burton.
Dakota Fanning.... Not since Ernie Reyes Jr in Conan the Destroyer have I wanted to see a child torn limb from limb so badly. All she does is scream and dispense child-prodigy pearls of wisdom between breaths. Then she screams some more. All this, and losing the use of her legs constantly so that Daddy Cruise has to lug her around like a suitcase, left me beyond irritated with her. In fact, my partner remarked that the movie should be retitled "Carry the Daughter".
The son was equally annoying, but made bearable because you actually thought he might have died at one point. How naive of me to assume that any central character might die in a Spielberg production. Magically he teleports from the jaws of certain death to happy safety in Boston. Or so it seems.
The movie, for all its technical prowess, is woeful in many departments. Spielberg seemed to be attempting to "do a Titanic", in that he set a drama against the backdrop of a tragedy, which was almost incidental to the film. Cameron got it right in Titanic. Spielberg doesn't here. The unfolding family drama is just downright aggravating and just gets in the way.
The plot is just so full of holes that it is embarrassing and insulting to think such a cinematic giant as Spielberg couldn't have even bothered attempting to patch them up. Are we really to swallow that aliens as curious and active as these ones are portrayed can plan a million years ahead? That they would plant machines on our world that long ago "just in case" or as some kind of "lay away" plan? C'mon! The whole thing is so woolly. I mean, woolly story, woolly physics, so much wool that you could knit an entire cardigan whilst watching it! But, on the plus side I learned these unassailable truths from watching this production:
1. Aliens can hide thousands upon thousands of death machines beneath the Earth's surface which, over the course of a million years, are not once damaged or unearthed by seismic activity.
2. Alien weaponry can silently vaporise people but mysteriously leave their clothing unharmed.
3. Aliens are smart enough to make their death machines waterproof but don't think to include an air filtration unit as basic equipment.
4. Electromagnetic Pulses (EMP) will knock out all electrical and electronic equipment and devices, unless said devices are integral to the laughable plot.
5. A jet passenger liner can crash on your house but you will be unharmed if you stay in the basement. What's more, your car will also suffer no ill effects, even though your house and neighbourhood are completely demolished and a convenient, rubble-free path will allow you to drive away afterwards.
6. Newspaper people will scavenge amongst the dead for provisions after even as short a time as one day without food or water.
7. Alien death machines get sick just like their occupants, losing the ability to stand motionless or even operate their defensive shields, thus allowing hapless humans to take them out with simple anti-tank weaponry.
8. After sending machines to Earth millennia ago, the aliens are happy to use these million year old relics again, apparently not having developed their technology any further in the intervening epochs.
9. When planning a sight-seeing trip to an abandoned farmstead, aliens will never bother to put on any kind of protective suit, instead relying on their natural immunity to protect them from any bugs.
If I seem flippant with the above, well....it's the only way I can find to get across the scorn with which I regard this movie. A great opportunity was wasted here. The 1953 version still stands as the undisputed champion of these movies. But, if you must watch an alien invasion movie, rent Independence Day. At least that had no pretensions about what it was. This is just painful.
And to think, Spielberg was worried that Cruise's off-screen antics might negatively affect the movie's revenue. Frankly, the movie would have been a whole lot more entertaining if Tombo had saved the day with a bottle of vitamins. At least we could all have had a good laugh then.