Unsatisfying Cruise, Spielberg vehicle....

Rating: 3/10 (2 July 2005)

****Contains Spoilers!!!!**** I tried to like this movie, I really did. I have read some of the other reviews on this movie and I disagree with the majority. I am a huge fan of Spielberg films, he is, in my opinion, the master of developing characters and portraying the neverending battle of good versus evil. This film fails at this and so much more, from the technical aspect of electronic shutdown across the globe to panning the camera into a fully functional hand-held video recorder to the ensuing chaos that is happening behind the characters to the emotionless army to the failed attempt of a homage to 1950's sci-fi flicks. This movie is deadpan and flat. You never care for the humans because they are just as bad as the machines (maybe Spielberg intended this) leaving 2+ hours of special effects, destruction, and watching Tom Cruise move from different situation to different situation trying to sav an annoying Dakota Fanning. The ending is atrocious and abrupt, leaving you feeling robbed of what could have been a good film. I would have preferred to see Harrison Ford cracking his whip at one of the machines or E.T pop out of one of the machines trying to phone home. Fx are decent, perhaps the saving grace of the movie. * out of ****.