You'll see it anyway, but I don't recommend it

Rating: 3/10 (11 December 2005)

I'm not a Hollywood-lover by any stretch, but in LOTR and Harry Potter I at least saw big-budget movies which had more than visual panache.
Not so WOTW, my family heartily recommended this to me, and two copies have been bought for the fam, so I thought hey, it couldn't hurt...
Oh yes it could! This is played as a survival movie, yet so many of the characters' actions make no sense. Suspension of belief means not considering aliens to be unrealistic, not accepting all the nonsense that clogs this film's arteries.
Hundreds of people mill around even after the ground cracks open and tonnes of masonry are falling all around them. Even gnats would have the basic survival instincts to just get out of there. Even in ZOMBIE movies, 'people' tend to have a little more sense. Oh DEAR.
The young girl character is extremely annoying, spending her time either zombified, shrieking like she's been slapped or having the mannerisms of an adult for NO apparent reason.
I haven't typed this particular lil nugget before, but it needs to be said: Child characters should behave like child characters with only ONE exception - movies like Home Alone where the younger audience wants to see kids being the heroes.
It is EXTREMELY, AGONIZINGLY, PAINFULLY annoying to see kids behaving like adults in a 'serious' movie. I don't care if younger audiences have disposable income to waste on rubbish movies, adults watch films too -.- Don't waste my time with this garbage any more, I am sick to the hind-teeth of it.
The son is OK except the ridiculous scene where he demands to be allowed to go and gawp at a battle taking place, endangering his sister and father in the progress. My old man suggested that young men behave like this in wars, get pumped up and just go in blazing. This kid wasn't blazing, he was whining and needed five across the eyes. Is that really supposed to be accepted? A punch on the chin and dragging him away would have been any adult's response to such a pathetic display of childishness.
The entire world is apparently on the move.. where are they going? Why are they going? Why aren't they holed up?
The scenes in the basement dragged on and ON for no apparent reason, it was dull and ground the film to a halt.
The whole issue with the electronics and a plane crashing on the family's refuge (already covered in detail) is a glimpse at just how sloppy this production is.
Then we have the sudden demise of the aliens, the alien ships' shields malfunctioning for no apparent reason, leaving us with a final feel-good (yay, the military can do something other than die now..) and the vomit-inducing final scene, which also made no sense. The son dying (he would be dead in almost any other film, he ran headfirst into a massive explosion) added at least a nugget of credibility to the film, this gets blown away when he turns up with the rest of the (miraculously) unharmed family, in a street where they're apparently the only people around. Bogus, silly, shoddy, cloying and SLOPPY.
Quite aside from the slopping blooper bucket, the entire film is supposed to be carried on the three characters' shoulders. Cruise plays a decent 'git who you want to like' (apart from when he's singing, dear God), but the kids really don't offer anything. We run from one nonsensical scene to the next, having nothing to look at but fancy effects and wasted opportunities.
The plus points: Good effects, Tom Cruise really isn't bad in this flick.
Bad points: I couldn't watch it again EVER, the little girl character, sloppy bloopers by the bucket, character reactions and motivation bizarre to say the least, abrupt and sickly ending, feeling of being cheated as the credits roll.
It ain't a pleasant review, but I resent this tosh being served up as quality cinema - may 2006 be a better year -.-