Negligent

Rating: 4/10 (5 August 2005)

I get the feeling that Spielberg must have lost interest in the film once the beginning sequence was over, and left the rest to some underlings to finish as he went on to something else.
Other reviewers have pointed out many of the plot inconsistencies and gaffes, but what struck me was the overall sloppiness and clumsy pacing as the film drags on. Like a doddering Martian tripod, the flick starts to lurch uncertainly after the beginning, and at the end seems like it's a different movie entirely.
Even the framing of the shots at the end seemed haphazard and confused, the story-telling ill-planned. The final destruction of the Martians by earth bacteria should have been played with some drama--it is, after all, the climax of the film--but instead we get Cruise asking some National Guardsmen what happened to a fallen war machine, and then a crowded shot of another tripod falling into some sort of factory. From there, the movie just cuts to the improbable denouement of the reunited Cruise family on the surprisingly sedate streets of Boston. What?
It really feels like Spielberg lost interest in the film and didn't know what to do with it.
Very strange.