A good start to a bad ending!!

Rating: 1/10 (1 July 2005)

The beginning of this movie was quite good! The action and suspense was Steven Spielberg at his best. I was fully impressed with the first half of the movie and I was intrigued! Than about half way through the movie it took a turn for the worst! First of all lets talk about the characters. Tom Cruise personified the arrogant and distant dad to the extent that it seemed way too contrived and rehearsed. His daughter was even more annoying and unlikeable with her constant forced screams and shrill voice! The daughter had too much face time in front of the camera and a lot less of her might have prompted a higher star review from me. Furthermore she was constantly condescending and spoke too much like an adult. Her constant questions to her father was getting quickly on my nerves. I would have been rather pleased if the Aliens had captured or evaporated her with those lasers shooting out from the spacecraft. Sadly everyone else met the same fate except for this annoying kid. Now to the son. In typical Hollywood drama there is always a son or daughter ( in this case a son) who is casted as the social misfit with angst and confusion about his life and his place in it. Of course the dad ( tom Cruise ) gets the brunt of this anger and of course a future resolution between the two is telegraphed, yawn! The son did some absurd things like running away from his dad so as to "fight" the aliens, absurd on its face! The script writer gave the worst lines to the kids. The movie became really bad especially when they were in the basement of that silly man. Why was he even in the movie? He served no essential purpose other than to waste about 40 minutes of an otherwise failing film. His character was confusing and not essential in my humble estimation. The most absurd moment was when we are to believe they actually were able to walk to Boston unharmed or even having the physical capacity to do so. GIVE ME A BREAK! If those aliens did exist there would be no realistic possibility they could have survived, none at all. Of course the son, who should have died, made it safe and sound. Better yet the whole family came away unharmed, LOL!!!!!! Truly wishful thinking in light of the human destruction abound in the film. It would have been more realistic if at least some of the family members died, also more dramatic. The worst part of the film is that we are treated to something of a really bad scenario only to discover in the end we are left thinking what is the big deal? It went from bad to good way to quick and it was kind of insulting to many viewers who wish not to suspend that much belief. The ending was terrible and so too the music that accompanied the credits. Overall a major loss of two hours.