Watch Independence Day again, it's better.

Rating: 3/10 (4 July 2005)

The movie starts off with some shots of earth from outer space and how humans have been watched for years and for some reason the aliens are jealous of humanity. It then goes on to show Tom Cruise in New York, where lightning strikes the same place multiple times, and these giant machines come out of the ground. The general public are idiots, and instead of running away from the giant alien machines, they gather in a crowd and stare at it, making it easier for the aliens to incinerate them. The first part of the movie was pretty good at introducing the aliens and Tom Cruise's character, but then it all breaks down after that. The remaining hour and a half of the movie consists of Tom Cruise staring dramatically at something and Dakota Fanning (his daughter) screaming at the most inopportune times... repeatedly. No real motive was given for the alien invasion, which would have been OK if they focused the story of Cruise and his family, maybe getting back together with his ex-wife or something meaningful. Instead, they're running and hiding the entire movie. Halfway through it I found myself just wishing they'd be caught and killed just so the movie could be over. The only sympathy I found for Cruise's character was that he had to deal with the annoying screaming of that banshee Dakota Fanning. Yes, there's aliens and they're destroying everything... we heard your first thirty screams, now let the man drive his stolen car. I was hoping Tom Cruise would reach to the backseat and just slap the living taste out of her mouth, yelling "I'M RICK JAMES, BITCH!" She certainly deserved it. Dakota Fanning actually shuts up for more than 5 minutes during the scene where they're hiding from aliens in a basement cellar. It was your typical hiding scene... decent but nothing stellar. Spielberg can't make something out of nothing as well as M. Night Shyamalan. The ending was abrupt, stupid, and made no sense. Maybe if we knew more about the aliens, we'd actually be able to understand it. Part of me was hoping for Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum to pop out of one of the machines and killing things Independence Day style, which would have made this movie 100x better, yet would have still sucked compared to Independence Day. In conclusion, don't watch War of the Worlds. Watch C-Span governmental debates instead. You'll be more entertained and less confused. On yeah, Dakota Fanning is annoying.