Fun movie that is ultimately unsatisfying but with great special effects

Rating: 4/10 (8 February 2006)

Following reports being shown on the TV News of freak weather conditions and complete failures of all electrical equipment in parts of the Ukraine and spreading to other places in the world, unnoticed by Ray Ferrier's (Cruise) family who are too busy being awful, the weather conditions and bizarre electrical conditions start happening to them - followed by the appearance of terrifying tri-pod destroying machines and the world becomes a crazy place. Can Ray and his family survive ?
Oh dear. I didn't realize before the final credits that this was directed by Stephen Spielberg which was just as well - I would have had much higher expectations. It seems that he is losing his touch.
The movie starts well - introducing us to the rather stereotype characters with typical Spielberg finesse, rapidly building a dislike, on my part at least, for the two children that he develops with great mastery though the film. Spielberg shows us around, shows us Ray's (Tom Cruise) typical bachelor-pad with no food in the fridge, car engine in sections on the table and bits everywhere. Irrelevant really.
Spielberg then gets underway on the plot - he gradually introduces horror upon horror which really made me start thinking about just how vulnerable we really are....
....And then, around halfway through the film it's like his apprentice takes over directing the movie, or somebody says to him - "Ok Stephen, great movie so far but you've only got half an hour or so of movie-time left so you'll need to wind it up now".
The last section of the movie runs like he's scored a black line through his script, this page, that page, this page is OK, this page can go. And so forth. It's rushed, and the sense of horror I was feeling during the first section rapidly fizzled away as I became puzzled by the huge holes in the continuity ("how did they get there ?", "so what happened to... ?", "who's that guy ?", "so where are... ?" sort of thing). I found myself wishing that some of the loose ends would be joined together to help the story make sense. The Director is now moving recklessly onward, nailing this metaphorical coffin-lid shut with as few nails as possible in his determination to get home.
Huge sections of character development and plot so essential, relevant, and in keeping with the first half are omitted. It doesn't work. And then the ending is a complete disappointment. So very badly done.
As a result of all the holes in the storyline and people's characters, any sense of awe, so carefully developed from the start is replaced with a sadness that this movie plot has just stopped being plausible, the characters have stopped being realistic, and quite some time before the end of the film I was left feeling that 'this movie sucks'.
It could have been so good - but it should have been twice as long (at least) to maintain consistency and quality throughout and I was left extremely disappointed.
I think this is probably Stephen Spielberg's worst movie.
Nonetheless I do recommend watching this movie for the special effects which are very good, and for the first half which is terrific, but do expect that you will be disappointed by the second half then if/when you are, maybe it won't detract from the movie so much for you as it did for me.
5.5/10 = 4.5/5 for the first half plus 1/5 for the second half