Partially satisfied, but very upset with the Hollywood ending.

Rating: 6/10 (30 June 2005)

First of all, I don't know how closely this film follows the book and I can't watch dated SCI-FI movies, because the technology bugs me.
Pros - 1. The first 2/3 of the movie was intense and it hit the ground running within 10 minutes. 2. Tom Cruise did a decent job acting for the first at least 2/3 of the movie. 3. The Special Effects were awesome. 4. I was entertained, and this is important. The movie was not totally meaningless like "The Hulk" or "Darkness" (two movies that I've seen recently. 5. There were many intense scenes where I felt my self actually caring about what would happen next.
Some spoilers down here. Cons - There are probably more, but these are the ones that bothered me most. 1. Dakota Fanning! I am usually impressed with this little girl's acting ability, and even though her character was to play a girl with some obvious mental issues and phobias, the screaming was just too much. I wanted to scream out, "shut up!", on several occasions. 2. The entire neighborhood is wiped out by an airliner, but for some reason the minivan sitting in the middle of flaming debris, that the Ferrier family was driving, manages to stay completely in tact and there isn't a problem driving through all of the debris when they leave. 3. In the middle of the movie, the son decides that he must prove something to himself by running into a big ball of fire developed by the aliens. He obviously bought the farm here. The fact that one of the main characters "dies", actually brings some heart to the movie, but I just didn't get the kid's reasoning. Please dad, let me go commit suicide. I will do it bravely. 4. Although I actually enjoyed the character played by Tim Robbins, it seemed like he was playing the resurrected character that he played in "Mystic River". Hmmm, is he being type-casted? 5. I thought the aliens in the cellar scene was stupid (or at least the aliens seemed stupid), even though I understand it's purpose was to show the audience that they were breathing our air and drinking our water, which was important to understand the ending. 6. Now for the cheap "hollow"wood ending. After the aliens start to die off because they can't live in our environment, we see that somehow after going through hell, Ray Ferrier and his daughter manage to make it to their destination in Boston, where his pregnant ex-wife, her husband, and her parents look like they were living in an area that the aliens seemed to miss. It must have something to do with the lifting of the "Curse of the Bambino". The people all come to the door and they look all nice and clean, like they were living in there own private Idaho in downtown Boston. OK, so I'll let them go on this. Afterall, everyone likes a happy ending, right? Then, just when I thought the movie would be fine if they just ended it there, the son (yes the one that should have died) comes out of the house and hugs his dad. Now why would they do this? I felt betrayed. This wasn't a surprise. It was just stupid. It made me lose all emotion for the movie, and regret that I actually started to care for the other two characters.
Here are some other technical things that I questioned when I heard or saw them.
1. How stable would those tripod machines actually be? 2. If the machines were buried in the ground for who knows how long, wouldn't these aliens have produced something far more advanced over the years? 3. It seemed like the aliens were using the humans as a method of fuel, later in the movie. If this is the case, what were they using when they first appeared and starting wiping the humans out? 4. It cracked me up when the military guy in the basket says "get down", after he sees the grenade pins come out of Ray's mouth. Where was everyone supposed to get down to? 5. When the para-scope eye thing was roaming around in the cellar, I thought it should have been able to see the people running around. 6. Would fixing just the solenoid on a car make it suddenly operate after an EMP type situation? Did I miss something? Did the guy say that he replace the battery? I actually thought the engine block sitting in his house would play a bigger part. Do video cameras work without solenoids or something, since at least two of them remained operational during the attacks?
I gave this movie 6 out of 10, because I was entertained throughout and the special effects were awesome. Like Maximus said in Gladiator, "Are you not entertained". Though there were some obvious flaws throughout the movie, I still enjoyed most of it. If it wasn't for the stupid ending, I probably would have given it a 7 or 8. Because of the ending, I wanted to actually give it a 3 or less, but then I realized that with that one exception, it was still a decent show. I also gave it a 1 point bonus because of SCI-FI content.
For all of those people rating this movie at ones and twos, if you want to see a movie that is truly deserving of such a low rating, go rent House of the Dead or Alone in the Dark - These are some of the worst movies I have ever seen (ironically, these movies were both done by the same director).