Ominous, terrifying and absolutely superb!

Rating: 9/10 (29 June 2005)

Okay, straight of the bat - this is my kind of movie. I'm a huge fan of both disaster movies and sci-fi. And, as this can be seen as a combination of the two, I'm sold. Hook, line and sinker. The best thing about this movie is the absence of high ranking military, politicians and the (in sci-fi flicks anyway) ever present genius scientist. There are none in this movie and that's absolutely excellent. Instead we're hurled into events alongside the average Joe, in this case depicted by not-so-average Tom Cruise (who is excellent by the way). Spielberg has made it so that I got the feeling, the entire movie, that I'm actually there with him - like an invisible member of his family that he keeps saving from imminent death. Granted there are a lot of "near misses" by the aliens, on several occasions, but it never gets silly - it just increases the tension. I find two scenes extra interesting. First the scene where Rachel (Fanning) tells her father Ray (Cruise) about the splinter in her hand. Ray wants to remove it, Fanning simply says "When my body's ready it'll push it out". A key scene and line for this movie. The other scene is metaphorically interesting. As this movie reminds everyone a whole lot of 9/11 then it's not a very far stretch to see the aliens as terrorists. Even more interesting then that Ray manages to take one of them down by (almost) becoming a suicide-bomber. The only thing I can complain about, really, is that I thought the movie lost a lot of its pace when Ray and Rachel are taken in by Ogilvy (Robbins). Granted, Ogilvy is there to further push Ray towards the edge but the space and time the dank, dark, cellar-scenes take up is just too long I'm afraid. In contrast though it's eerily wonderful when Ray emerges from the cellar and looks upon the ravaged lands. The ending has been debated - I have absolutely no problem what so ever with it. In fact I find it totally in sync with the movie as a whole. When our planet was ready, it pushed the splinter out.