Be careful what you wish for...

Rating: 1/10 (14 January 2006)

One of the commonest complaints about sci-fi movies is that there is too much reliance on special effects and not enough character development. In this movie, the sci-fi story is just background noise to one of the planet's most dysfunctional families. Cruise's character is a clueless jerk and his kids are obnoxious. Every time that little girl screamed or decided to be a pain in the butt at the worst possible times, I was hoping that the death ray would get her - or at least that someone would stuff a sock in her mouth. When the son is determined to go off and fight the aliens, all I could think was, "Great, 1 down, 2 to go, and now maybe the real story (of a war between the worlds) will begin." It's usually a big mistake to make your main characters and hero totally unlikeable and lacking in charm - I didn't care if they were all pureed into alien V-8 juice. This could have been a great movie if it had used the title as its storyline. As it is, it should have been called, "Father Doesn't Know Best, His Kids Think They Do And They Never Let Him Forget It."