Bad emotions

Rating: 5/10 (6 July 2005)

Big surprise here: Tom Cruise cannot act, Steven Spielberg cannot do feelings. So ignore the characters and enjoy the destruction. We did have a discussion as to whether Tim Robbins can act, but one person won the argument by suggesting that Tom Cruise brings other actors down, down, down. The scenes that really ruin it are: the peanut butter sandwich family get together (they had electricity; did no one think that checking out TV and radio stations might have been better than working out their dysfunctional family problems?), the son running after army trucks (let him go, one less character to hate), that ghastly screaming girl (only when she was in the Martian cage did she shut up, so I say bring the aliens back to earth and use them as babysitters), and the ending (big groan from the audience; as one friend said: "Don't they do test screenings? Perhaps they should have different endings for Americans and Europeans"). Otherwise the suspense and effects and camera work bore the hallmarks of good Steven Spielberg films. And a bit like "Titanic", you want the destruction to start so you don't have to listen to the dialogue.