Just another monster movie from Spielberg

Rating: 5/10 (2 July 2005)

Spielberg mostly just does big old monster movies. That's what this one was. Cardboard characters from central casting. Lots of screaming and screeching by a little girl. Lots of hiding as the monsters sniff around trying to find the humans. Take Jurrasic Park and Jaws and put the monsters in big tripod machines and you've got Spielberg's vision of War of the Worlds. Tom Cruise was mediocre to bad. His character was unlikeable, even stupid. In the scene where he did not even know his daughter was allergic to peanut butter the movie fell off the credibility cliff. Who PROOFS these scripts? The cinematography was OK and the special effects were typical. We are way past the point where special effects can carry the movie. Now they are practically standard. Movies need to now return to dialogue, plot and character development. Oh.. and they need to be entertaining too. This one was not particularly strong in that department, either. Score it Five. Average. Very average.