Great Hollywood blockbuster with no substance

Rating: 2/10 (12 December 2008)

To be honest, i don't GET this movie.
But first, what i DO get:
1. i get that there's a bunch of aliens that have been planning this for years and years, before our race ever existed (so far, so good, interesting premise)
2. i get that Tom Cruise's character started off as an awful dad then suddenly turned into a great dad (fair enough, why not)
3. I also agree that acting was decent, that there were some plot holes, but that generally, this movie made for a thrilling ride.
4. I also understand that this is supposed to be one family struggle, and NOT the story of how the US government conquered the aliens, so we did NOT get the usual situation room discussions between highest ranking officials of the world discussing a strategy to fight back.
And therein lies the problem. If all you want to do is show me how a family deals with this crazy situation, then this movie is brilliant. because you see the way Tom Cruise, as a dad, has no choice but just to react to what's going on, and just keep running, with one goal in mind, save his children.
But unfortunately, for 5 minutes in the movie, they are trying to tell us that Tom Cruise is NOT just an average dad, and that somehow, he had something to do with the downfall of the aliens. First, by sticking a grenade inside the aliens, and 2nd, by being the only one to notice, at the end, that the aliens are dying, 'cause there's a bunch of birds picking on the metal.
SO, from this, there's can only be 2 conclusions of the director's intentions:
1. If Tom Cruise was, indeed, the catalyst, then he should have somehow been rewarded or at least acknowledged by the government
2. if he wasn't (which, i don't think he was, seeing the concluding narration, the defeat of the aliens was for an entire other reason related to bacteria and environment), then please, for the sake of respecting your audience, can you please EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THIS HAPPENED, rather than sticking a 10 second narration by Morgan Freeman at the end to give it a neat wrap-up?
I am not a biologist. I don't understand what you mean by "the aliens doomed themselves by breathing our air and our race has every right to reclaim its place on this earth"... say what to who??????
Honestly, this is what i feel happened: the movie was originally filmed to be a whole lot longer, and then had to be cut, and it was the explanation parts that got cut, leaving us with a purely action movie (no problem there), but with no substance when in fact there should have been some.
I think this movie is a dis-service to Spielberg AND to HG Wells.