Great movie ruined by a stupid ending

Rating: 4/10 (27 May 2006)

Up until the last two minutes of the movie, this was one of the best science fiction movies I'd seen in a long time. The ending was absolutely horrible, and I'm not talking about the fact that the aliens were wiped out by viruses/bacteria. That's in the original, and is exactly what I expected. I'm talking about the fact that Tom Cruise's character makes it to Boston and finds his entire extended family alive and looking as if they just got done with tea, despite the overwhelming improbability of ANY of them making it through alive. I felt like this was an insult to my intelligence, but when his kid, who absolutely COULD NOT have survived running unarmed towards a bunch of alien ships that were killing people by the thousands, mysteriously showed up alive and in Boston. It completely ruined the gravitas that was so well established by the rest of the movie. This ending felt like a personal insult. I felt like Spielberg must have a pretty damn low opinion of his audience to tack on an improbable, stupid happy ending that makes no sense.
This movie would have gone down as one of my favorite science fiction movies of recent years, had the ending not ruined it all.