Huge Disappointment

Rating: 3/10 (5 July 2005)

For all of its nonstop action set pieces and narrow escapes, "War of the Worlds" is a strangely inert piece of film-making. There's absolutely nothing in the film to retain your interest. Tom Cruise plays a completely anonymous character who you learn nothing about, and his kids serve little purpose beyond being mere plot devices and giving Tom Cruise something to do besides save himself. Steven Spielberg directs this film with a grim relentlessness; there are scenes to frighten and disturb, but there is absolutely no sense of fun. It's as if he brought the same sensibility he did to "Saving Private Ryan" to this film, but here the approach and the material don't match. "Private Ryan" was about an actual event, and there was some value in depicting it as realistically and disturbingly as possible so that those of us who've never lived through something similar might be less inclined to treat the subject casually. But come on--this is an alien-invasion flick, the stuff of pure fantasy. Spielberg's obvious efforts to take advantage of the movie-going public's post-9/11 jumpiness seems calculated and rather tasteless.
There's no point to talk about the acting, since there isn't any. But I do have to mention Tim Robbins, who gives a ghastly performance in a pointless role. His minimal storyline should have been left on the cutting room floor, with much of the rest of this film.
This is one of those movies that doesn't even follow its own logic; the kind where all electronic devices stop working, until someone needs to be able to use a cell phone for the convenience of the plot, and then miraculously their phone works. I was actually quite surprised at how bad this movie was. It's shoddy storytelling, which is not what I've come to expect from Spielberg. He's never been one of my favorite directors, but I've always given him credit for being far more capable than he is here. Maybe he was just directing this film to pass the time before "Munich" (his Oscar-bait movie of the year) was ready to start filming. Whatever the reason, his heart was obviously not in this one.
Grade: D (some splashy visual effects prevent it from receiving an F rating)