Another remake ruined by clichés.

Rating: 1/10 (11 September 2016)

So I guess we'll now never get to see an actual war of the worlds as it's supposed to be done. Seeing as most of the action takes place off screen, whether it be while the characters are hiding out in a basement or taking place on the other side of a hill sight unseen, I don't see why one would bother watching this at all.
You'd think that you might get to see a war right? I mean it's right there in the title "War of the worlds", but what this turned out to be was "War of the Recently Divorced Dad". As all we got first hand was screaming, precocious, annoying and disengaged brats who seemed intent on making life as difficult as possible for their father, Tom Cruise, while he struggles to keep them alive in the midst of an alien invasion.
I am so sick to death of Hollywood families all living in some kind of crisis. You can literally tick off all the cliché boxes as they happen; down and out deadbeat dad - check, older male child who acts aloof, buries his head in his headphones and calls his father by his first name - check, young daughter that has an anxiety problem that's totally misunderstood by the father - check, catty ex-wife - check, smug new husband/partner - check, so we have all the wooden two dimensional players with one dimensional traits and your conscience starts waiving big red flags. The only thing missing from this was the need to constantly save some scruffy flea-bag dog or disgruntled cat.
The first 20 minutes of this is not that bad, the build up is good, the effects are all good and once the tripod emerges and the invasion starts, you can't wait to see how this will all pan out, but then it slows itself down for some reason, and then it decides to pick up again, and then slows down again, and the whole movie is like this from start to finish. Ever been on one of those frustrating bus rides where it's all build up speed then brake, build up speed again and then break and everyone is just propelled forwards and backwards the whole journey; well that is what this film is like. The whole stop, start, stop, start really gets tiring for all the wrong reasons and you're crying out for some sign of action.
When the aliens first announce their presence the action is relentless, but everything after that happens off camera. A jumbo jet is brought down but we don't see it, we just see the aftermath. The army engages the enemy but all the action happens out of view and again we just see the aftermath when all the vehicles retreat in flames. I'm sitting through this and asking myself, when are we going to see any real war here? If I wanted to see a dysfunctional family on a road trip arguing every 2 minutes, I'd stay home and watch the Simpsons.
The only time we see the army do anything at all is right at the end of the film, when the aliens are sick due to Earth bacteria and are slowly dying anyway. Their shields no longer work, they're acting erratic and it's kind of a bittersweet result in bringing down a dying machine. We never hear what's happening in the rest of the world and like every other modern invasion movie, the rest of the world simply doesn't exist outside of the United States.
In my opinion this had no right in being called War of the Worlds, There was no war to speak of, the U.S is not the world and this is nothing more than an insult to the original story.