War of the Worlds
*possible spoilers*
I don't know what to say about this movie. It had a lot of great moments, but was an overall disappointment. It felt like a combination of different alien movies including Independence Day and Signs. The story as told through the perspective of Ray (Tom Cruise) and his children was a very good way of showing the invasion. The first hour provides the audience with a great haunting sensation as we are given front row seats to the mass destruction that these aliens can do.
Spielberg has shown he can create scary films that makes the audience feel uneasy (see: Jaws and Jurassic Park), and this movie was no different. One of the creepiest sequences is when Ray and his daughter (Dakota Fanning) are in the basement and the alien enters searching for humans to destroy.The second half of the movie feels so rushed and just isn't interesting to watch. Tom Cruise did a pretty good job playing a bad father in desperate need of redemption. Dakota Fanning was fun to watch at first with her intellect and sophisticated dialogue, but after a while her screaming and whining became rather annoying.
The end, Dear God the end was the worst. If it's showed me anything, it's that Spielberg is a slave to Hollywood and their "happy endings." Overall the depiction of the aliens were spot on with the original drawings, but the script itself lacked depth and the glue needed to bind the whole thing together. They had good material to work with, but it seems like they just gave up on it half way though the movie. Good atmosphere, good score, bad movie.
**1/2 posted by psychobabbler @ 5:39 PM
