War of the Worlds — Page 5

*SPOILERS*

Saw this on Saturday and was disappointed. I was really looking forward to this film as I'm always been a fan of Spielberg's work, but this is one of my least favorite films of his. There was simply too much focus on the "bad-dad-making-good" story rather than the alien invasion and its impact on society. First off, Cruise's character was so unlikeable, I didn't care what happened to him and thought his kids were better off without him. As soon as he witnesses the first signs of massive destruction, he sticks around and leaves the kids to fend for themselves at home. By that time, I really hated the father and simply could not sympathize with him for the rest of the film. I just felt sorry for the kids for having to put up with him. When he leaves the girl alone again so he can protect the more adult boy who is far more capable of taking care of himself really made me want to shoot the laser at the dad and dustify him. Did anyone really care what happened to him at the end?

How convenient that he found the only working car and everywhere he drove had a clear path for miles. On the roads. With hundreds of stalled vehicles. Right.

The very special introduction to the very special Tim Robbins cameo made me laugh out loud. That whole let's-freeze-on-his-face-so-everyone-can-recognize-it's-Tim-Robbins was just silly and pathetic. The whole Tim Robbins sequence was far too long and drawn out and the film would have been better off without it. The snakey spy things were reminiscent of The Abyss and Minority Report and wound up being dull, predictable and pretty silly-looking (anyone else think of any one-eyed snake jokes?).

The actual destruction scenes were fantastic and that noise they created for the tripods was pure signature Spielberg. It created an absolutely terrifying effect and he could have gone much further with that rather than trying to wedge in the plot concerning the familial relationships. I mean, E.T. was never about a single mom's struggle to raise three kids, Close Encounters was not about a man's failure to communicate to his family, and Jurassic Park was not about an archaeologist who learns to like with children. Spielberg always had a human aspect to his sci-fi films in order to allow his audience to connect to the characters, but he didn't make the relationships the focus of them. He tried it with A.I. and it backfired on him. Minority Report did a better job, but this was kind of a step backwards from that. I thought the ferry scene was the best part of the film and I really wished the rest of the film could have been more like it. Dakota was the best actor in the whole thing. Cruise has given better performances, but usually it was because the characters were written better. There really wasn't a whole lot here for him to work with. To say he was good or great in this film is really not saying much at all.

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I thought the movie sucked. The whole time, I didn't care if any of the main characters lived or died.

"When was there a clear path on the road?! Cruise was weaving in and out of the other cars stuck in the middle of the street. Don't know how some people seemed to have missed that..."

The fact that he could weave in and out and the road was never completely blocked was what I meant. New York to Boston and no jams? Seriously? What about intersections with lights? Come on! If the road is never completely blocked, that means there was a clear path. I thought Spielberg did a MUCH better job with action and suspense in the first Jurassic Park film and even Minority Report.

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I still thought it was an increadibly thrilling action movie, logic or no logic, it was just a blast!

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