One to see on the Big Screen. My 4th of July weekend pick.

Rating: 8/10 (30 June 2005)

Whoa! Tom Cruise can act. Don't get me wrong, I like Tom Cruise movies for the most part. It's just when I go to one, I expect to see Maverick or some other bigger than life character who turns out to save the day with a cocky attitude.
In War of the Worlds, Tom (Ray Ferrier) is just an ordinary guy who is a blue collar worker who is estranged from his wife and seriously lacking in several areas in regards to his family. He is anything but heroic which makes his character so much more believable. You can actually watch this film and not think of Ray as Tom Cruise and all that name has come to mean.
This version of the movie follows his story from a very personal perspective. Ray is just an ordinary guy trying to keep his children alive in when everything around him is turning to dust. He has to make a lot of really tough decisions and the beauty of it all is that it would be easy to argue that along the way he makes a few mistakes.
The CG in this movie is the best that I have seen and I have worked in the industry. This isn't your typical crystal clear Star Wars CG. ILM really pulls this one together and it comes of as very realistic. It's had to tell where the CG starts and the actors begin. You will recognize some CG techniques from earlier films. The optical tentacle was very reminiscent of the water tentacle in The Abyss. The aliens remind me a lot of the ones in Independence Day and the tripods remind me a lot of some of the machines in The Matrix which harvested the humans. However they did a much better job of mixing these elements in to the film and making you believe they were part of the environment with the actors. The dust, grit, smoke, steam and liquids coming from the ships is all there even on the big CG shots and it really ties them in to the overall picture. Nicely done ILM! Lastly I would like to agree with other reviews that Dakota Fanning does an awesome job acting in this. Her screams raised the hair on the back of my neck. If you are or ever have been the parent of a small girl, you will know exactly what I mean. When she's scared, you believe it. You don't see too many child actors who are this believable in such a demanding role. I think we will be seeing Dakota Fanning in many films to come.
For what it's worth, I would probably rate this a little higher than Batman Begins if you have to make a choice this 4th of July weekend. It is definitely a movie you will want to see in the big theater and not wait for it to come out on DVD. There is no way a TV can do this film justice. Go see it while you can on the big screen.

Darv Darvin Atkeson http://www.liquidmoonlight.com