Do yourself a favour and leave before the end

Rating: 7/10 (18 July 2005)

A great rollicking, shocking thriller. And then the wheels fall off.
The start is brilliant - vintage Spielberg a la ET, complete with precocious little girl. Tom Cruise is a believable everyman, and when confronted by mind-blowing disaster he handles it like any one of use might.
Then the directors forget they're making a credible sci-fi and start making Independence Day meets Mission Impossible.
Worse yet, the end is unforgivably bad.
Do yourself a favour and walk out about 10 minutes before the end, as the conclusion is so painful, it casts a pall on the entire exercise.
Spoiler: The whole of the US and world is trashed by the "machines". The entire world that is, except for a corner of Boston, which is forever USA. They stupid directors even have Tom caress a weed-covered statue of the Patriots show us the point, that this is where we (America / Mankind) gained our Freedom and will regain it for evermore. This dubious assertion is made with the elegance of a giant pile of elephant turd on the carpeted floor of a Victoria's Secret...
Spoiler: A filthy, (smelly?) Tom and Dakota arrive at the only untouched block in the World, and the power still works, and everyone's clean, and the streets are shiny and polished. Granma and Granpa and pregnant Mom (and Mom's husband) all come out to the front door to see what the fuss was all about. "There were monsters!" "MONSTERS??" "They killed people with laser beams" "LASER BEAMS??" etc. "Why don't you come inside and have a nice piece of freshly baked apple pie and tell us all about it".
Spoiler: When Tom arrives at the Boston in Apartment his son is there as well - but while everyone in the apartment is good and clean and fresh the son is filthy. Fer heaven's sakes: Just because he fought aliens doesn't mean he can't take the odd shower now and again. BTW, if all the infrastructure was trashed, how do they have electricity and water?
Main moral of the movie: When the aliens invade, if you a working class slob, your world WILL be trashed. But if you're a rich Lexus-driving Bostonian Democrat, nothing to worry about. You may not get your newspaper for a few days, and fresh bok choi might be unavailable for a little while, but the real s--t only happens to the working class.