Just Another Day When The Planet Is Attacked

Rating: 6/10 (30 June 2005)

This "War of the Worlds" is just an overblown disaster movie. It is pretty much the old version with Gene Barry just updated with fancier, well-integrated CGI, a lot more extras and heavy-handed 9/11 references.
We first see Tom Cruise as his working class "All the Right Moves" character aged into "Ray," an irresponsible divorced dad. Then the aliens land and he spends the rest of the movie dealing with just one damn thing after another with his kids in trying to go over the river and through the woods to grandma's house.
And that's it. There are only occasional thoughts in this movie's head.
As a sci fi movie, the basic conception of the alien weapons gestating underground then kick-started by electromagnetic streaks of lightning is visually fun, if a bit of a "Tremors" re-tread. We see the aliens and their weapons almost too close up so they lose their mysteriousness as a fear factor, though they look a lot like the unconvincing ones in "Signs," but of course with E.T. hands, and they may intentionally be a bit cheesy to recall the earlier version.(The Hensons' Creature Shop should really do all aliens.)
As a post-apocalyptic examination of human reactions in the face of catastrophe, we get the usual, but very large, frantic crowds of panicked and fighting refugees and only glimmers of originality, particularly when Tim Robbins shows up as a shell-shocked survivor. But the film in general takes a much more individual survival view of vengeance than either "Revenge of the Sith" or "Batman Begins," as this is supposed to be grounded in reality.
The real references are hammered home with the kids twice asking dad "Is this the terrorists?" after he staggers catatonic-ally home covered in white ash, streets capes full of posted notices of the missing, and falling (empty) clothes dropping slowly to the ground from up high.
Notably, it is not Cruise's character who tries to be some sort of hero, but his teen son, well-played by Justin Chatwin. His rebellious exchanges with his dad are the most natural dialog in the film.
A key decision point in how far "Ray" will go to choose to take on family responsibility takes place off-screen, despite the PG-13 rating, which made me ponder how other directors would have shown that struggle not just more graphically but more emotionally. Let alone that because Cruise is such a big star we never for a moment worry about his survival, despite the number of times it sure looks like he's being blown up but his character doesn't even get injured. Director Steven Spielberg flirts with an homage to "The Searchers" at the conclusion, but falls for a sentimental touch instead that had the whole audience a bit quizzical as to its believability, even as it stresses the family lessons learned.
Dakota Fanning is annoyingly Hollywood precocious in the first half, but settles down naturally into scared kid.
Some touches had a quizzical symbolism, such as the effort to reach Boston's Back Bay past frequent sign posts to "Athens", the ex-wife being pregnant with the rich new husband (so how old was she when she left the seat of America's revolution to have their teenager?), the teen's school paper on the French occupation of Algeria, the undamaged Minuteman statue, and so on.
It was nice to see the working class bit parts taken by actors from "The Wire" and the best production design is in the early recreation of their dense, close-knit neighborhood, even if Cruise makes no effort to have a Jersey docks accent.
John Williams' music is commendably more restrained than usual and the long patches with silence let you hear your breath catching and heart beating faster through the best, most tense scenes.