Weapons of mass destruction

Rating: 6/10 (2 August 2005)

--> Spoilers ! <--
Oh come on, why does any flic that I've recently watched which has been hyped to the max have to end up in a disappointment ? After a great start, this movie stagnates, gets very bad in the last third and ends up in nothing (Well, except from a VERY cheesy, unfitting message "No death is in vain", yeah, right !) All I have to say is that with that terrible metallic Sauron snake eye, the sooooo frightening and threatening doggy aliens (Yeah, didn't arrive at inventing the wheel, but think they are this superior, or why were they so surprised with the bike?) and the completely unnecessary and illogical death of Tim Robbins the movie pretty much went down the drain. I was really looking forward to see one of my all-time-favs Robbins in a major Hollywood action blockbuster, and then he gets such a tiny weirdo role (Well, at least he can't let go of his digging, get busy living or get busy dying, this time the latter, eh ? ;-) And I guess the only reason why the "weapons of mass destruction" (Well, that WOULD have been a reason to attack iraq) were buried for a long time (veeeeery convenient!) instead of a much more logic flight attack was that Stevie didn't want to copy independence day too much. When I got it right, in the original novel/play the aliens actually attacked from the skies, didn't they? And this family story, I dunno, Tom as a complete loser/jerk who turns 180°, a little to exaggerated. And I think they REALLY overdid this little girl's screaming, oh man, it's such a cliché, no action flick without it, and always louder, higher, and of course more annoying, exquisitely demonstrated in that movie. And a little explanation why the son was alive in the end wouldn't have hurt. But whatever explanation they could have come up with for the immediate (!) finding of a hand grenade belt inside a farmer pick-up before Tom takes out the machine would have failed(I guess I don't need to say more about this) And though I liked the tripod machines, especially the one which appeared first, a little diversification of alien vehicles wouldn't have been the worst thing for this movie, because, as stylish these things may be, the viewer really gets sick of them after a while. Apparently, all the people in the movie standing around Tom who watched the first tripod rise shared my first excitement: "Woohoo, what's this, wow, that's so interesting and it doesn't look strange and threatening at all, well, so I guess the smart thing to do right know is to stand here with an open mouth and wait what it does.." Seconds later: "Oh no, we all get killed, except from Tom of course who can sense the heat rays with his blue collar super powers !" Oh, brother !