Somewhere in there is a fantastic flick waiting to get out

Rating: 6/10 (23 November 2005)

What really disappoints me about this film is that somewhere in there is a fantastic flick waiting to get out. It has scenes which are highly impressive but these are equaled by those which are just ridiculous.
First of all my bugbears with the movie:
1) Tom Cruise  Bad casting. Loved him in Minority Report, his last collaboration with Spielberg; hate him here. He doesn't convince as a father, even an irresponsible one. You can see him trying but that's the problem; a real actor doesn't look like they're trying.
2) The kids are annoying. I know I know, little Dakota Fanning plays traumatised pretty well. Except I think here she overplays it. The son meanwhile, well, personally I'd have tied the little turds hands behind his back, found a gun, and told him to march 6 feet in front of me if I had to.
3) I don't get the "they've been planning this for over a million years" thing. There's about 100 things wrong with this. The worst being that the aliens somehow overlooked innoculations for local bugs. Sheesh, even when you fly to Asia or Africa you get shots!!! And it didn't take a million years for us to work that out! Or maybe a million years just wasn't long enough to do any research into it!?! Here's an idea for the sequel: Aliens get sick & die. Other aliens (in protective suits) come down; grab one of the deceased ones; take it home, dissect it; work out an antidote from its blood; vaccinates its entire military; then invades again. Jeez, don't let a little bug stop ya guys!!! There's a planet at stake here!!!
4) The aliens have awesome technology that can zap people, destroy buildings, terraform the planet; but their hearing abilities are terrible, both biological and mechanical. I mean, how much noise do the Cruiser & the Timster make in that basement while that snake scanner thing is snooping around?!?! Hello!!! It's not a big basement people!!! And you mean to tell me the scanner misses the lit lamp that they extinguish just before the aliens come down for a look around in case it "might give them away"?!?
There's more but to be honest they border on the trivial. The special effects themselves are fine tho not outstanding in this day and age of "the next movie topping the previous one for jaw dropping fx".
I would've have liked Spielberg to focus more on the complete social collapse, something rather briefly hinted at during the mob vs car scene. It would have brought the movie much closer to home; a lot closer than say, the endless September 9 references, which while poignant still left me somewhat emotionally distant from the groups predicament. There wasn't really a feeling of horror here. Everything seemed rather paint by numbers as a matter of fact. I realise it's a remake and a rather loyal one that adheres to the originals framework. I just believe the potential could've been expanded on rather than only the special effects.
It's quite alright for some remakes not to be submitted to the "high concept" or "alternative view" approach (i.e the need to starkly differentiate the latest version from the original). For the latest Batman the alternative view approach worked extremely well. However the meat & potatoes of War Of The Worlds is about Human survival against Alien invaders. While it may be a parable of the Holocaust or other examples of mans extreme inhumanity to man, what this movie should be about is what we would do to survive & the levels we would sink to against impossible odds. It didn't need to be about a family. It needed to be about Us as a species. In this case it should've been made much more simpler tho with more pathos and introspection. What we have instead is just a simple movie with characters we care not a jot about.