the references to colonialism

Rating: 7/10 (17 July 2005)

Probably everyone knows the plot: the evil aliens attack defenseless Earthlings. In this version, Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) is a divorced New Jersey longshoreman watching his son Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning) for the weekend. Then, a most unusual lightning storm knocks out all power and a giant machine crawls out of the ground and starts killing everyone in sight.
Needless to say, Ray, Robbie and Rachel flee. But no matter where they go, the aliens are everywhere. The movie's high point comes when Ray and Rachel hide out with Harlan Ogilvy (Tim Robbins), a paranoid loner ready to fight the aliens to the death.
Knowing that H.G. Wells' original novel was an allegory for colonialism, one can certainly see it in the movie. Not just the way that the aliens are running roughshod over everyone, but in what Ogilvy says: "This isn't a war...this is extermination." Whether or not that's an allusion to the Iraq War, I don't know, but we can certainly read it as such.
Some parts of the movie are pretty predictable, but overall, I liked it. Morgan Freeman's narration isn't quite as effective as his narration in "Million Dollar Baby", but he still does quite well.