A remake but not a rehash - spoilers

Rating: 7/10 (4 July 2005)

Full credit to Spielberg for trying to place a new perspective on this story but, for me, he failed to capture any of the desperation or dread of the original film and his new spin did not do the original material justice The nucleus of the original film is simply that, despite all of human kind's, well mainly mankind's, military achievements sometimes it is the small and apparently insignificant that triumphs.
Spielberg's film simply did not convey how utterly powerless the world's military might was against the alien insurgents. Because the extermination by the machines is carried out so quickly and effectively it is clear that the machines are unstoppable but just how unstoppable is not so clear. In the original movie the decision is finally made to use nuclear weapons, at that time still a relatively new development and so more awesome, but this also proves fruitless. However, in this film we see little of the military's defence of the planet and so cannot appreciate the invulnerability of the alien's machines. The audience could be forgiven for thinking that surprise had been their main weapon. This detracts from the power of the final message. However, I'm also fully aware that a lot of this ground has been trodden before, by the likes of the awful Independence Day, for example. I can completely understand Spielberg's desire to avoid any comparison to that film at all and that could explain the apparent neglect of even a whiff of a military struggle. Also, with regard to the small overcoming the larger and technically superior, I can see that too much banging of that drum could have been seen as an unfortunate allegory on terrorism, even bio-terrorism.
Instead Spielberg chooses to focus on the plight of three individuals. This is a fair direction to take but without a little more reinforcement of the original plot point, humankind's utter weakness even as a united entity, this emotional drama could have been played out against any backdrop.
Of course, having seen the original and so being aware of the aliens final demise I didn't have the luxury of a virgin viewer and so had no real anxiety about how it would turn out. Yet, for example, I watched the end of the Sixth Sense with a vague foreknowledge of the twist and I was still captured by the story.
One minor triumph however is the way events of the insurgency are told, or not told. At no time are we afforded a view of events beyond the immediate experience of the main leads and only then via interaction with another human being. In this way the utter chaos of the situation is portrayed by surrounding them with hundreds of people but utterly isolating them from any information or wider order, a truly terrifying prospect. For me this was not quite carried off but the intention was clear.
In some respects, given this information starvation and the small scale focus, I wonder if it might have just have been better to forego the final explanatory voice over, totally forget the how and why of the alien "defeat" and focus on the fact that Ray and his family survive, rather than having them make it to safety AFTER the turning of the tide. There the finale of the film is confused: did they make it home through tenacity and strength of human spirit or simply because the aliens were defeated? In line with the film's focus it should be the former but due to the "NO shields!" scene and the final voice over it comes across as the latter.
To sum up, I think the original film and story preys on our defencelessness and desperation as a species, and therein lies it's strength, but the new film focuses on the defencelessness and desperation of a few individuals and, in this day and age, I think individuals have plenty in their real domestic lives to threaten their health and well-being without the need to involve an alien insurgency.