Godd movie with some bad spots

Rating: 3/10 (18 July 2005)

While this invention of WOW is more along the lines of HG Wells's book and the tripods along with the red weed and the use of human blood as fertilizer for the weed which is their food (while in the book blood was their food, and the weed was just that an alien weed). The Short lived T.V. series also touched on the aliens need for blood (but for different reasons) and the fact that they were not actually martians but only used Mars as a staging area. The idea that they had buried their tri-pods on earth millions of years ago is a bit of a stretch and would have done better if they had followed the book and the 53 movie in that they came to Earth via a meteor storm. It also failed in the scientific area as not attempt was made to address the aliens as was done in the book and the 53 movie. This movie would have been better if it was maybe 45 min longer and added more of the elements of either the book or the 53 movie. But over all the special effects were good and just about the only good thing from this movie. The acting by Mr. Cruise was so flat I was wondering if he was even trying to act or was sleep walking. (maybe his Scientology has depriving him of his humanity). He seems to do less acting and relies more on FXs. The acting was well done by Dakota. The story could have been well done except that there were far to many missing elements.