“War of the Worlds” is like a snack or drink that tastes good going in, but leaves you with a bland after-taste.  On the surface, the movie is filled with dazzling special effects, great action sequences, and a good performance by Tom Cruise (I can’t believe I just typed that).  Underneath, however, you’ll inevitably discover a shoddy plot, one-dimensional characters (other than Cruise’s Ray Ferrier), and a rather anti-climatic ending.  I went into “War of the Worlds” hoping to be amazed, like I was with the last Steven Spielberg/Tom Cruise collaboration, “Minority Report.”  Instead, I left with a very “meh” feeling. 

            First, let’s talk about the plot.  It makes absolutely no strategic sense for a supposedly advanced alien race to build war vehicles that walk on three legs.  Look at life on our planet – most creatures here have legs in even-numbered sets.  The futility of this design is exploited by Ray near the end of the film, which left me wondering how the hell these aliens could be so dumb as to design a machine a construction worker could destroy…  Also, I must question the logic in destroying humans with laser-like weapons some of the time, but then harvesting them for blood other times.  The blood harvest seems crucial (or maybe that’s just me), so why not just harvest everyone?  Why bother killing anyone, when capturing them is so easy (done with giant tentacle-like gripper arms)?  I could go on about the crappy plot, but I won’t, for the reader’s sake… 

            The plot could have been forgiven, had the film been blessed with great performances across the board.  And while the performances are decent, for the most part, the characters themselves are poorly written, leaving the actors little with which to work.  Tom Cruise gets the best character in Ray Ferrier, though Ferrier isn’t the best-written movie hero ever.  Dakota Fanning gets the short end of the stick with Ferrier’s daughter, Rachel – her character does little more than run, scream, get rescued, repeat ad nauseam.  She does a commendable job with what little she is given by the screenwriters, though; I guess that’s worth something in a film as bland as this.

             Now we come to the ending, which is bound to put out most reasonably-intelligent moviegoers.  I won’t spoil it for those of that, despite my review, absolutely must see the film; suffice it to say the aliens are defeated in the most ridiculous manner possible.  It is something that the aliens should have researched and planned ahead for; after all, the film tells us they’ve been studying us and planning their invasion for millions of years.  The ending is so dumb, it really made me want to go home and watch “Independence Day” again.  Those aliens had it together, man.  Actually, you know what you should do, dear reader?  Just watch “Independence Day” again (or, if you’ve yet to see it, for the first time), and wait for this ho-hum flick to come to DVD – and then, just rent it.

- Isorion

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