Second rate Spielberg

Rating: 6/10 (14 January 2006)

Spielberg's loud and hectic adaptation of the classic sci-fi novel is watchable but ultimately disposable. Spielberg re-visits his earlier ideas of the benign alien and replaces them with murdering, colonising, reptilian creatures who want to use planet earth as some sort of blood farm. Cruise plays one of Spielberg's archetypal fathers - detached and uncomprehending of his children, but also a man who will do anything to protect them. His daughter, as portrayed by Dakota Fanning is as irritating a performance by a child as Hollywood has ever given us; precocious, annoying and with a line in self help and personal space she screams her way through the film - she can even scream over the marching noise of the tripods!
Individual moments stand out amidst the cacophony Spielberg has flung on to the screen but this is certainly not the director at his best.