Aliens from Outer Space attempt to take over the world.

Rating: 8/10 (10 July 2005)

This is quite an exciting big screen adventure film, and surprisingly, it has many of the same elements as its 1953 predecessor.
My recollection is that the aliens look much the same as the ones that were in the earlier film, and the exploration tube which they use to enter houses has a very similar lens design. But, this one, of course, has the Spielberg trademark regarding alien appearances. There has to be dark, stormy clouds. Their scout vehicles are different than the ones in the first film. In the first film they arrive on earth, if my memory is correct, in spaceships which create a crater from which the scout vehicles emerge. In this one, their method of arrival is quite different.
And Tom Cruise, whom I detested in the past before his last three films, continues to be a very good actor. He plays a father who is divorced, and does not know his two children very well, and seems to have not had an interest in the past in correcting that. As for Dakota Fanning... as always an incredible actress.