Absolutely Awful

Rating: 4/10 (2 July 2005)

SPOILER ALERTS (though there's not much to spoil)!! From start to finish, this movie was ridiculously bad. It's an alien invasion film, but the most implausible things happen at the very human level. A massive crowd gathers around a small hole in the ground, yet our hero easily slips to the very front. The space invaders fry everything electronic, but there was Joe Schmo filming the action on his digital camcorder as the mechanical behemoths rise from the ground to lay waste to everything in sight. All cars are disabled, yet our protagonists manage to find the only one in operation (which shouldn't be in operation at all). Away they rush along roads and interstates where all of the other disabled transportation conveniently leave a path of escape. Deadbeat Dad Cruise and his emotionally alienated kids find refuge at Mom's house while she and her new hubby visit the grandparents in Boston. Does our haggard father rush to a TV or radio to try to figure out what's going on and what to do? Nah. Instead, he makes peanut butter sandwiches. However, the tranquility is short-lived as a jumbo jet (curiously devoid of passengers) comes crashing down on Mom's abode. Not the house next door or the one down the street but Mom's house. But worry not. Though devastation abounds, the family truckster lies untouched by the carnage, once again with a convenient drive thru left vacant.
It only goes downhill from there. A pointless chance encounter with a recognized woman and her daughter who are immediately lost in the throng of fleeing people. Eight or so unarmed soldiers who can hold back hundreds (there's Cruise and Co. right at the front again) but manage to let our heroes slip by. Then there's Cruise's son, anxious to fight the invading hordes, rushing off with the armed forces only to seemingly get lost in a massive ball of flame that engulfs the pesky human resistance, leaving unmanned Humvees rolling along ablaze. Yet, there he is, nary a scratch, awaiting our fleeing father and daughter team at their final destination, a destination surprisingly intact and virtually pristine. Our beloved Mother figure emerges with Grams and Gramps with that, "What's all the ruckus going on out here?", look on their curiously clean faces.
We never know why the aliens come, how their machines got here, what the heck all those root things are, or the point of this entire film. The invincible aliens trample and terrorize for the entire length of the film only to be laid low by bacteria in the course of fifteen minutes, a fact we are given postmortem by our handy Morgan Freeman narration. Dakota Fanning gives an admirable performance as the daughter-in-distress by, if for no other reason, how much it distances itself from the lackluster performances of Cruise and the remainder of the bit-player cast. Tim Robbins is passable as a rural survivor slowly sinking into madness, but, like most of the other contrived set pieces in this debacle, his character's participation is short and pointless.
Where is the Spielberg from "Close Encouters" and "Jaws"? As the filmmaker ages he continues to give himself more and more liberties with blatant plot holes and blundering plot lines. Does he think that little of his audience? Has he grown that lazy? Or does he just not care anymore? Where is the Cruise from....? Oh wait, this is always the Cruise we get.
As alien invasion films go, this "War" makes "Signs" and "ID4" look like Best Picture material.