War of the Worlds

Ever since Tom Cruise became a Scientologist and certifiable nut case I have made it a point to avoid movies with him in it. I hate to think that by supporting his movies I am indirectly donating to Scientology. So I waited until War of the Worlds ended up on free TV before watching it for the first time. I finally got to see the movie last weekend and was blown away.

Sadly I was not blown away in a good way, I was blown away in the same way as I was when I saw Battlefield Earth or Face Off.

This movie has to rank as one of the most shit movies I have ever wasted my time watching.

Tom Cruise, in what one might call type casting, plays the roll of an asshole. He has an annoying dysfunctional teenage son, and a cute looking but incredibly annoying daughter.

This trio are forced to flee their home when aliens land and start to blow shit up. They then proceed to make one stupid decision after another to the point where the story loses all credibility. If this movie were real this guy and his stupid kids would have been among the first to die, because this kind of ineptitude is sure to lead to death under these circumstances.

The movie lurches from one ill-conceived scene to another. Unlike other movies where one is rooting for the hero, anyone that still cares enough to be watching this movies is probably simply hoping that the main character just dies and takes his equally mindless children with him.

This movie only makes sense if you are already familiar with the story, as too much has been compressed into too short a movie. But don't get me wrong I certainly would not have wanted the movie to be any longer just to be more fluid. It was quite long enough to endure as it was without drawing the tedium out any longer.

I'm not sure if there is some pact among Scientologists that they will not be involved in making good movies, but this one really did take the cake for an utterly shit movie that should definitely be avoided. The only upside that I can see is that I didn't pay to see it.