Nice Special Effects  Pity About The Rest of It..

Rating: 4/10 (30 August 2006)

Nice Special Effects  Pity About The Rest of It..
This attempt by Steven Spielberg to bring us a 21st Century interpretation of the classic H.G. Wells was certainly a brave project so what did we get? In the end we had a very well made film but with some notable low points that just did not seem to gel properly. The special effects were impressive as was the photography and direction whilst for the most part, the cast did their bit.
However we can only speculate as to how good this film really could have been were it not for a number of major failings.
Characters  There was not really a single memorable character amongst the cast, with the exception of Cruise's battling divorced father (and even he had a number of faults), their was an awful lot of cardboard cut outs, cannon fodder and plot device carriers with no depth or even names for the most part.
The Kids  Any movie with clichéd 'irritating yet cute' characters grates with me. Once again instead of a couple of ordinary reasonably intelligent children, we got the delinquent teenager with the attitude problem and the irritating little girl with the health issues (allergic to peanut butter, back problems and claustrophobic). If this is representative of the majority of the youth of today then quick frankly its time to pull the plug on the entire human race!
The Nutter  Tim Robbins is a great if underused character actor but his role in this as the nutter in the cellar was utterly pointless and should have been jettisoned at the first script review.
The Plot Holes  You could see the car being repaired just in time plot line coming a mile off. Meanwhile there was no apparent explanation of how on earth the teenage delinquent son managed to escape certain death to appear once more at the end although yet again I suspected this was what was going to happen.
The Alien Defeat  Yes I am fully aware that the way the alien's just roll over and die in mid battle because of bugs in the air is indeed in the original story but it still smacks of a lack of imagination Star Trek style end of episode reset switch that brings the story to a juddering halt.
The Sound Track  What has happened to John Williams of late? There was a time when the musical genius could do no wrong but yet his recent work, notably the totally out of character (in comparison with the rest of the series) soundtrack for Star Wars Episode III plus this have been very weak and lacking the classic punch and glory of his earlier work
With a bit better script, some attention to the obvious weaknesses and maybe even some different casting, this could have been excellent but as it is, it is watchable but disappointingly average.