Plodding like a tripod...

Rating: 1/10 (27 October 2005)

Now, I've read the book, and now I've seen the 'faithful' if updated movie and I can see where Mr. Spielberg was going with this. That said and done, it's like A.I. without the redeeming quality of Spielberg trying to make an homage to Mr. Kubrick. I think this film needed to have a different cast, especially the lead character. If you are going to center a film on one actor for all 2 hours of it's existence, get one who is interesting to watch. Tom Cruise stumbles through this movie more as a prop than as a story telling device, showing only numbness at the invasion of the aliens, causing the audience to show nothing but numbness in the theater. Dakota Fanning can be replaced by a scream machine and a rag doll. The son was the only one who interested me at all, but even then the broken home angst was a touch overdone (rooting for the Red Rox 'cause dad likes the Yankess is a little obvious, but it is American Big Budget Film) My take on the film, using the "Money I'd Pay To See It Scale" is: -$5.00