possibly one of the worst movies I have ever seen

Rating: 1/10 (28 December 2005)

*likely to contain a spoiler* If this movie weren't so over-rated I would almost feel sorry for it. It is one of those movies that seems to earnestly try to be exciting, dramatic, and entertaining...and fails to be any of them.
The "excitement" comes from the impending threat of aliens invading the town of Tom Cruise and his two estranged children. "Drama" abounds as they steal a car, have it stolen from them, ride on a really crowded boat, have the brooding son leave them (for virtually no reason), hide in a hole and on and on.... "Entertainment" comes from, well...
"War of the Worlds" does not prove to be that entertaining of a movie. The closest thing coming to viewing pleasure is pointing out the ASTONISHING lack of plot and character development (a woman named Carol and her daughter Nora are "introduced" when getting on the boat. There is no room for Carol to get on the boat. Carol is never seen or mentioned again...); the poor pacing, the amateurish lighting choice, the fact that the "aliens roaming the basement" scene was right out of "Jurassic Park (only it was kind of scary then); the fact that the aliens are not frightening in the absolute LEAST (the little silver eye..thing that scanned the basement practically looked like a happy face, and the "sick" alien could almost be described as cute)and on and on...
In short: there is nothing about this movie I found well-done. The grade-Z sci fi channel movies are literal MASTERPIECES in comparison... and yet, those remain relegated as kitschy grade-Z films, while this so-called blockbuster bizarrely gets fawned over, for reasons absolutely...alien to me.