Not deep, but extremely well made

Rating: 7/10 (25 October 2005)

Ordinarily, location choices and set management are barely considered when a big-budget CGI action flick is made.
Happily, this film revels in the opposite extreme: the outer boroughs of New YOrk City, the frumpy clothes, the rain and cold misty breath, the textures and dirt... are all so vivid, so REAL, that we can readily accept something as ..well.. PREPOSTEROUS as an alien invasion.
Heck, I even found myself thinking "Tom Cruise... is acting ? I didn't know he could do that !" The lack of plotting is quite nice, adding to the whole panicked atmosphere of the film rather than detracting.
Small touches, like photographing little Rachel (Dakota) through a screen door or showing an alien ship through the maze of bare tree branches, made me really enjoy the textures and realism far more than I have in any other recent movie that comes to mind.
If you see this film, you'll enjoy comparing Tom Cruise's frumpy, lumpy, messy house and fractured home life to Will Smith's overly-clean, overly sensational similar home scene in Independence Day. Where Will Smith is asked to play a smarmy, too-clean, all-mighty guy sleeping with a sexy stripper in a fairly well set-decorated house and neighborhood, Tom Cruise is a delight to watch as a divorced, grungy dock-worker whose setting is so believably portrayed as to make me, a New Yorker, nod almost continuously while thinking "Yeah... that's the way it really is." More about the acting: Tom Cruise, like WIll Smith, is almost always asked to play a good-looking, all-mighty, smiling near-superhero. It was refreshing in the extreme to see him here with tears, an almost droopy face, and filthy fingernails....a less than average man, surviving only by coincidence, and completely convincing as "just another guy from the hood".
Dakota's performance as his daughter is even more engrossing. While she isn't yet being offered roles with the impact of Haley Joel Osmet's childhood films, I'm mentally crossing my fingers and hoping that this budding actress will continue to bloom as she has in this film.
Tim Robbins' brief role is riveting, and his realism is engrossing. He's truly got star acting power.
Little incidental touches, like a woman and her daughter whom TOm Cruise's character sees just before boarding a ferry -- or another character who picks up TOm Cruise's fallen gun, who is nameless and wordless and only on screen for seconds-- are nonetheless producing powerful reactions in the audience.
Happily, the script is filled with good lines that are alternately powerfully wise or comical and accidental-seeming bits of real life. Watch for Tom Cruise saying "Cound you come up with a plan that doesn't involve your 10-year-old sister joining the army ?" or Tim Robbins saying "It's no more a fight between them and us as there is between men and maggots".
The alien machinery is particularly noteworthy. You'll particularly enjoy its unexpected steam-engine blasts, foghorn sounds, gritty dirty industrial look, and unexpected weakness (it vaporizes people, but leaves clothing intact). The designers succeed brilliantly in delivering an imagined alien technology that is believable, yet entirely unlike anything we've seen before.
Walk out before the final scene, though. The Hollywood happy ending is just... too damned silly, and doesn't belong in this film. It's completely unnecessary, ignores the spirit of H.G. Wells' novel, and tears the veil of realism away from this film like someone stripping wallpaper off of bare brick.
You'll also be annoyed at the darned silly inclusion of a virtual commercial for the army, toward the end of the film, when a band of army men get to use their bazooka with good results. This is an anti-war movie, but some damned fool on the film's crew decided to turn this and several other scenes into recruiting commercials for the army... completely out of place, like a damned Spice Girls song during a Mozart revival concert.