Stop Dakota Fanning from destroying any more movies!!!!

Rating: 6/10 (7 July 2005)

Major Spoilers ahead. OK Dakota doesn't give the worst performance in the movie - that "honor" goes to Tim Robbins. Tom Cruise doesn't kill him soon enough. But Dakota is in almost every scene and a little of her goes a long way. She expresses fear very well and screams very effectively but after an hour or so I wanted her to go away - far far away. Dakota has already made 18 movies and has three more in the can & who knows how many in her date-book - she is in serious danger of being over exposed. The movie was too much of a disaster movie - Earthquake? the aliens were only on screen a few minutes (as opposed to Dakota) and the setting was almost entirely East Coast so you never got any sense that this was a global conflict. It could have been called War of New Jersey. Everyone seems to agree the main storyline about the family pretty much blows. Which leaves the special effects which are good but not nearly enough to make this a good/great movie. One thing that struck me was the absence of pets - there are no cats or dogs in this movie. Knowing how many Americans have pets and what they would do if an alien dare attack their furry friend I found notably lacking.