Intriuging story with poor acting, annoying characters, and WAY to much CGI.

Rating: 3/10 (6 September 2008)

War of the Worlds is directed by Speilburg, who brought us some of the greatest science-fiction films of all time. ET and Close Encounters are only two of the countless, mind exploring films that he has done. War of the Worlds is one of Speilburgs poorest films in my view. It doesn't capture the imagination, strike the mind, or even provide good entertainment value.
The movie starts by somewhat developing a group of characters. Every character came up as annoying to me (the Mary Ann character in particular). The characters all seemed to be cardboard characters compared to what they could have been, which came off as a disappointment. The acting was also amateur level. Tom Cruise is one of my least favorite actors, so he didn't' impress me here at all.
When the pacing finally gave in and the aliens finally came up, the cgi was extremely overwhelming. I've never been the biggest fan of cgi, and in the 2005 version of War of the Worlds, cgi is abused to the fullest extent. The cgi didn't add anything to the film, and for me, it diminished it.
The middle and the end flowed together, but not very well. It was like a slingshot. The movie started to pull back at the beginning. When it was finally pulled back ready to show us some entertainment, it let go. The movie stopped pretty abruptly, which took even more away from the film to mention.
The only positive point in this movie was the special effects, but that factor didn't add anything to the overall story, so therefore, there was just no film.