A very good movie!

Rating: 8/10 (3 July 2005)

Having read the books, and heard the radio show, I was really looking forward to this movie. As a movie, it's a great movie, the cinematography, editing, acting etc etc are all brilliant. Spielburgs use of tracking shots is always pretty amazing. As an adaptation of the book - well, considering they transplanted the action 19th century London to modern-day America, it's an OK adaptation. Not amazing, as they seemed to use the book as an outline or synopsis, and they changed quite a lot of it. As with Lord of the Rings (2001), you have to look at it as a film rather than a adaptation of the book.
Tom Cruise plays Ray Ferrier, a divorced docker, father to two children, and the central character. Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin play his two children, neither of them close to their father, and Robbie Ferrier (Chatwin) spends most of the film fighting his father in a typical teenage manner, preferring to fight as opposed to flee. Fanning is excellent as young Rachel, who is completely dependant on her brother and father.
It's a rare sort of action movie where the hero runs all of the time, and isn't entirely responsible for the downfall of the enemy. But this only makes this movie seem somewhat more realistic (for a sci-fi movie), and the composition of the family unit makes it somewhat easier to identify with the characters, especially facing his feeling of inadequacy compared to his ex-wife's new husband and his frustration with his rebellious teenager.
All in all, a very good movie!