Director: Steven Spielberg
(PG-13, 116 min.)
Cast: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins
There are only two reasons why you should see this movie. One, you're addicted to that boyish charm that has made Tom Cruise a star. A star so bright that it obviously blinded the person who decided to cast 1980s sexiest man-boy as a tough, dock working deadbeat dad.
The only other reason to see this movie is to see absolutely huge Martian robots killing lots and lots of Americans.
As you may have guessed already, this is a big screen movie, don't bother downloading it, if it's not on a humungous screen it's not worth your time. Small screen movies are good for films containing good dialogue, character development, acting ability, consistency and so on. You'll find none of that filler in this explosion after explosion eye-candy-a-thon.
The original story has some cred because back in the 40s, when the only evening entertainment was radio plays, this story was so well done that an entire nation was convinced they were in fact under attack. This version starts with deadbeat Tom's kids showing up for an obligatory weekend where they barely call him "Dad". Minutes later, lightning strikes giving birth to buried human-eating, death ray killing machines. These events force Tom to get responsible fast, and from there on we watch absolutely helpless humans flee in panic.
There's actually some good momentum and just as you think this might be watchable, in comes Spielberg to once again kill a visually stunning story with an embarrassingly pathetic Hollywood ending.
