The worst Spielberg film since "Jurassic Park II". What were they thinking?

Rating: 1/10 (11 July 2005)

It's possible that there are certain inherent limitations to the source material. Since the resolutions comes about as a result of something the humans have nothing to do with, and have no control over, there is an unavoidable feeling that the main characters are too passive and ineffectual in terms of the plot and climax.
But I tend to be an optimist when it comes to the problem-solving needed in art, particularly storytelling, and I believe that there are things that could've been done with "WotW" to have made it better. For example, you can give the main characters a character arc in which they experience some type of change. Or one in which the alien threat presents to them an opportunity to act against type, and exceed his apparent limitations. Or you just plain make those characters interesting. But the movie doesn't do this. All we know about Cruise is that he's a divorce and a lousy father to his kids. He loves his kids, though, and goes on the run with them when the aliens show up. And then he delivers them to their mother. And that's it. Yeah, his teenage son thinks he's an ahole, and then they're relationship is softened by the end of their arc. Whoopee.
Mind you, the first half of the movie is very frightening as humanity is subjected to a horrific and near-inescapable genocidal Holocaust, and we feel for Tom Cruise's character and his kids as they do what they have to in order to survive. But there are just way too many contrivances and plot holes in the film, and what little power the film has all goes downhill during the second half, starting with the scene in which Cruise is trying to make his son flee from the scene of the tripods engaging the military.
Why, for example, does this little idiot say that he has to be there, that he "wants to see" the destruction? Why, during the trio's earlier bathroom stop, did he try to join the military, as if they need him? What was the reason for this? If I were Cruise, I'd have punched the little idiot in the face and told him to get his ass moving. What purpose did Tim Robbins' character serve, or Cruise's confrontation with him? And how was that one car that Cruise stole still functioning? The mechanic said something to him that got past me. Was he saying that switching the starter, or something, worked? How's this? Wouldn't the component he switched have also been fried by the E.M.P., even if it wasn't installed or turned on? Yeah, I've seen it alleged that circuits don't get fried by E.M.P.'s when they're not being used (as in "Broken Arrow", but then wouldn't all those cars on Cruise's block still be working, since they're weren't being used at the time?
The most ridiculous aspect of the film is the behavior of the aliens. For one thing, how does a living being "ride lightning", and penetrate the ground with it? And if this is how they entered the tripods, then where were they prior to this? If they approached Earth from outer space, wouldn't NORAD have been alerted to their presence? And why did they bury the tripods underground? Why didn't they just take them with them when they came for Earth today? What exactly did they want with humans? Their energy weapons seemed to simply incinerate the humans. But why? What was their problem with humans? And if they were harvesting our biological material, as some have suggested, is zapping each one the best way to do it? Also, why did they have to tip over that ferry in the second half of the film? Is there something about boats that prevents them from zapping them where they are? The only reason for this seems to be that it was scary to the humans and the viewer. And why do they zap some humans, but trap others in those mesh prisons underneath the tripods' main bodies? And when those imprisoned are sucked into that red orifice, why is it so much easier to escape? All you have to do to defeat these idiot aliens is to have a few people pull you back out, and make sure the sucking device takes a belt full of grenades? Just how incompetent are these aliens? These retards are so advanced that they can build these tripods, and travel (presumably) through outer space, but they're too dumb to understand the dangers of foreign germs? They send a tentacle probe into Tim Robbins' basement (for reasons I didn't even understand), and they can be evaded by hiding behind a friggin' MIRROR?????? What, don't they have non-optical sensors, like infrared, night vision, heat imaging, etc.? And instead of being composed of some super strong material, they can be chopped off with an axe? Just what the hell is the matter with this alien technology? Hell, when the tripods' main bodies were viewed up close, they didn't even *look* like something of an exotic-looking extraterrestrial design, but like something engineered on Earth.
I don't know what Spielberg or Cruise or screenwriters David Koepp & Josh Friedman were thinking, but this movie looks like they phoned it in this time.
Good thing I was friendly with the theater manager, so I didn't have to pay for the phone call.