War of the Worlds
It's just another day in the life for Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise). Getting off work. Picking up the kids from his ex-wife. Parenting and all that. Little did he know that in the next few hours, his life would change drastically. Lightning bolts come down from the sky at one particular spot and from it rises a giant tripod, a scene replicated at thousands of sites throughout the world. And while the naive humans stare with their jaws open, the tripod begins its assault on the town, shooting humans to dust and destroying anything in sight. Ray, with kids Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and Rachel (Dakota Fanning) in tow, leaves town to head to Boston where his ex-wife is staying. It's a race against time as the tripods close in to find any human in sight.

There's a scene when Robbie is drawn into the battle by the sounds of gunfire with Ray and Rachel hurriedly chasing him. Ray leaves Rachel and tackles Robbie in an effort to force him to come back with them. The obviously ambitious boy responds that he needs to go look for himself what's going on. I won't say what happens next, but I wish I could've gone. Instead, we're stuck following Tom Cruise around the whole time. And that's the problem with War of the Worlds. The first hour is a mind-blowing, eye-opening adventure as people race to escape the wrath of the tripods, but eventually the film settles down to focus on the plight of Ray as he weaves his way toward freedom. While itself somewhat riveting, it totally ignores the more interesting adventure of, well, everything else. One of the few redeeming features of the final half is a silent Fanning, who seemingly spends the first half just screaming. This film stays true to the H.G. Wells-written ending and while it makes sense, you must think that a story one million years in the making would produce a much more exciting ending. Hey, at least it's better than those aliens from Signs being afraid of water. 2.5 stars