Unbelievable Storyline

Rating: 6/10 (23 January 2019)

29 June 2005. Warning: Spoilers. This remake just doesn't make a lot of sense. There's too many holes in the storyline and the manipulative formula of the scenes are forced. From the beginning of the invasion the semi-mechanical tripods (an attempt to honor the H.G. Wells image of our invaders seems awkward). The original movie actually seems more modern in some cases this movie's attempt to work backwards. The aliens seem almost retro at some points without knowledge of infrared scanners like those used in the television series 24 by the counter terrorist unit, cages for people without force fields.
The manipulative storyline begins to drag where coincidence builds upon unlikely coincidence as Tom Cruise tries to for some fantastic reason reunite his children with their mother (who has divorced him) and lives in Boston. He finds a van that runs after an electromagnetic pulse wipes out any electronic device. He is able to negotiate around the freeways at ease while all the other vehicles are conveniently mostly out of his path. There's the required mob scene. There's the how do one's get to be the last family on the ferry which of course is later capsized. We have a young daughter who needs to go and relieve herself but even after her experience with dead people, suddenly these no time to actually go...(I probably would have to go in my pants right there and then). Then there's the son who seems for no real good explanation has this death wish who actually survives at the end (a tribute to the good, happy American ending).
The absence of any focus on the military effort to counter-attack the invasion (quite the opposite of the original movie version) is an interesting decision, making the whole military counter-offensive look uncoordinated and confusing...nobody seems to no what their are doing and where they are going throughout the movie - more like zombies without intelligence.
The creepiness was there, but unfortunately, this movie came across not as a horror/thriller but more like a science fiction action movie. The eerie red color was effective. The overall texture of the movie, the disaster sequences powerful, yet all this is let down by the actual unfolding of the substance of the movie itself.