Rent the original and bypass this piece of garbage

Rating: 2/10 (30 June 2005)

In a war of the worlds movie, I expect to see a war, i.e. the armed forces against the aliens. This was basically Tom Cruise vs the aliens. There was one flyby of some jets, and one scene with some tanks. Otherwise, just Cruise, nothing but Cruise. There was not one freaking scene in this entire movie that did not have Tom Cruise in it. Then there is Dakota Fanning. She is a cute little girl. So put her in a cute little girl movie. She certainly brought nothing to this movie. I suppose she was supposed to be the reason Tom Cruise cared, (although, basically he just wanted to hide so what was the point) but if we were really being attacked by indestructible aliens, wouldn't you care even if you didn't have a cute little daughter. Not to mention that the movie spent an inordinate amount of time showing us that Tom was an uncaring father. Okay, I got it after the first 30 minutes.
Independence Day was closer to War of the Worlds than this was. My advice is See the original War of the Worlds. Sure it only had 1950's special effects, but it had story and characters you cared about. And battles between the aliens and the army!