Should have been better

Rating: 6/10 (11 July 2005)

War of the Worlds could have been a good movie had it not been bogged down by whiny kids and plot holes. The movie starts off great. Unexplained weather phenomenon, very good atmosphere setup and special effects that make you believe this is the real thing.
First problem with the movie was that I didn't feel any of the characters. The young boy was annoying at best: the best scene with him in it was definitely when they were tossing around the baseball, definitely the ONLY scene I recall where I felt chemistry. Other than that, his character was dry, linear and not at all believable. Would that girl shuttup??? She fricken screams for anything. Little storm AHHHHHH, seeing the alien camera after already surviving numerous larger scale attacks AHHHHHHHH, dead bodies floating down the river... oh wait, the one place she forgot to scream. Tom Cruise's character wasn't any better, but at least he didn't annoy me throughout the movie.
Second problem was there was too many things unexplained or that simply didn't make sense. These striders seem to have an attack range of a small city and can kill anything in it's path, yet, 10 of them stand around in a remote location together, tons of people manage to keep enough distance to not even see one while others encounter dozen in a 2 day drive, I must say for an advanced alien race, they're pretty stupid when it comes to strategic military planning. Another thing - these strider run off of humans??????? WTF!?!?! How did these aliens (who planted striders in the ground before the world really started) know how to design their machines to run off of humans? And if they could run off of humans, why couldn't they run off of trees, or dirt, or cement with the same tech??? How does that kid survive what was surely an inescapable death (that disappointed me)??? Overall, the movie started great with a lot of mayhem, destruction and brutality. But then turned into run and hide and scream for the next hour and a half. The special effects almost make it worthy of theatre watching, but definitely wasn't complimented by it's acting, character development, or story line.
6/10