Still don't really get it

Rating: 6/10 (6 July 2005)

I was really looking forward to this movie, and I gave it a lot of chances throughout, but it just doesn't bring much originality to the table. I have not read the book nor do I know how much the movie is like the book, but comparing this to other spaceship/alien movies, I did not come away feeling like I was awed by anything. The special effects are pretty good. I feel like this movie took a lot of ideas from other movies including The Abyss (the probe in the basement scene), Independence Day/Star Wars (the 'impenetrable' field on the alien ships), Jurassic Park (when the alien probes are looking for Cruise et al in the basement as well as the constant noise of the tripods moving about outside), Signs (the entire basement scene), Signs/Alien/Predator (the look of the alien beings themselves), Twister (the storm at the beginning), Titanic (the boat scene).
I was entertained by the beginning of the movie. The lightning storm was pretty cool, the disintegration of humans by the aliens was kind of unique, but I thought the fact that Cruise somehow has the only working car to get out of town was pretty dumb. Unexplained things in the movie that irritated me: why Cruise's son was so stubborn about taking on the indestructible aliens and then how he survives in the end. Do the aliens die because of the earth's atmosphere, our diseases? The end talks about the smallest pieces of life and have paramecium floating on the screen-is it bacteria or other organisms? Why is Tim Robbins and Spanish from Old School in this movie? What was the significance of Cruise destroying the tripod with some grenades (which also reminds me of something I saw in Raising Arizona/the Professional with the pin on grenade in Cruise's hand). That metal crate of people falling to the ground after the thing blows up and everyone is OK? How did the Japanese figure out how to kill them, but in the end they seem to die not from our figuring something out about them but because they are able to adapt to the environment?
This is pretty much a stream of consciousness now as there was just too much trying to be done in this movie and it ends up being pretty boring with the exception of a few parts. The Tim Robbins basement scene should have been 10 minutes shorter. They also could have done without Dakota Fanning disappearing all the time (I think she would want to stay with her father rather than be on her own hiding from aliens). I don't even know why I gave this thing a 6. I guess because I have always liked Cruise and Spielberg and I hate to admit that this one missed the boat.