I thought it was mostly crap. I’m surprised that it’s getting so many glowing reviews here. The special effects are decent (although not spectacular in this day and age), but the rest leaves much to be desired.
First off, I don’t buy Tom Cruise as a blue collar worker. The movie would have been markedly better with a no-name Joe Shmoe as the lead. Especially if he was slightly overweight and didn’t look like a movie star. (I understand why they cast Cruise, of course.)
Both children were annoying. What was the point of the conversation about the splinter in Dakota’s finger? I thought it was to show her as being tough for her age - except she spent the rest of the movie whining and screaming. And the son steals his dad’s car? I would have called the cops right away on the little bastard. Why the hell does he even want these wretched spawn at his house?
At least Dakota’s character wasn’t actively trying to get killed, like the son. What the hell was his problem? After he stole my car and gave me that kind of attitude, I would have let him run away with the army. Note to Hollywood: Not all teenage males are sullen, angsty pricks who act irrationally all the time and think they’re invincible. Really.
Come to think of it, Tom could have saved countless lives just by rolling down his window as he drove past the damaged cars and yelling, “Check the solenoids!” (At least, I believe that’s the name of the part he told the mechanic to check. I don’t know car parts.) While it doesn’t take long for this knowledge to become obsolete, there were plenty of times in the beginning of the film for it to have been useful to somebody.
Unsympathetic characters aside, there were too many implausable moments for me to take the film very seriously. For example, a plane crashes into your house, but your minivan not only survives completely intact, but doesn’t get a single flat tire driving over piles of broken glass and metal? (In my mind during the movie: “But it got a five-star safety rating!”)
The heat rays looked cartoony and seemed remarkably inefficient. They only lasted for a second or two at a time, then stopped, then fired again. Why not a sustained barrage? Why not use poison gas? For that matter, why not just drop some bombs (or even very large rocks) from orbit onto all major cities? How the hell did these giant machines get buried underground and avoid detection for possibly thousands of years? Why are people standing around watching it come out of the ground instead of running? I fet no sympathy as the first wave were cut down. In my book, if there’s a gaping, growing hole in the middle of the street, you should go somewhere else immediately.
The tripods, while realistic, didn’t impress me much. They just looked uninspired, artistically. Of course, we didn’t get many good close up shots of them, and when we did all we really saw were giant headlights. They were neither dark and graceful, nor lumbering and menacing. (Not to mention that when we first see a shield glow as it stops missiles, it clearly is not protecting the legs of the tripod. Later, a tripod appears to have its legs shielded, but that first time I couldn’t help but think, “Use your harpoons and tow-cables; go for the legs!”)
Speaking of the shields, why do the shields go down? Sure, the controllers of the tripods get sick, but why would that make them lower their shields (or wonder in circles aimlessly)? Is there a thirty minute cool-down before they can use them again or something? Did they leave them on overnight and now the battery’s dead?
Also, why doesn’t the snake-like sensor arm have a heat sensor? Or at least a microphone that doesn’t suck? It should have easily been able to detect the presense of Cruise, Dakota, and crazy shotgun guy. Heck, if it had even been able to look down it would have found them easily behind the mirror.
Alright, now that I’ve had my little rant, I’ll say what I liked about the movie.
I liked the train. It was an unexpected bit of creepiness.
I also liked how they lost the minivan. Very tense.
I also like how somebody else paid for my ticket.
