War of the Worlds

Dear Mr. Spielberg,

Did you look in the bathroom trash basket when you were small and see something nasty? Did you have a traumatic experience when you were a teenager getting to third base with a girl during her 'special time'? Did one too many of your Hollywood liberal actress friends make you watch their childbirth movies? Clearly, you have major issues with women's reproductive systems.

That being said, 'War of the Worlds', though cheesy as hell, is superior cheese. Maybe not hand-crafted artisanal buffalo mozzarella, but a pretty decent Cracker Barrel.

Tom Cruise is entirely unconvincing as a working stiff, with more than a whiff of Derek Zoolander about him. I couldn't help thinking when the aliens were chasing down and vaporizing terrified citizens, leaving their clothing, that they were really after Tom Cruise's jeans.

And the first time you glimpse the pallid, bug-eyed alien, it gives you a jolt. And then you realize it's Dakota Fanning. How can a ten year old look so world weary and like she's just been on a three day bender? Girlfriend needs some heavy duty undereye concealer.

The aliens themselves are strangely reminiscent of Mewtwo (It's a Pokemon, for those of you who don't have a son aged 5-12).

This is such a B-movie, the whole time I was watching it I was thinking about how much fun it would be to watch this when you're home with a cold or a hangover. It's heavy-handed and manipulative and there are plot holes all over the place, and Tom Cruise plays his usual Tom Cruise role in his faux working man clothes, and Tim Robbins does a scenery chewing campy schtick as a would-be child molesting psycho.

Special effects, Tom being stoic and heroic, Dakota screaming like a sodomized spider monkey, blah-de-blah, and then it ends abruptly, like a roller coaster, with a family reunion with Gramps and Gramma and the icy ex-wife all neatly dressed in spotless L.L. Bean. Gramps and Gramma have gotten over their animosity of not-good-enough-for-their-precious-Muffy Tom enough to give him a cheery New England wave from the stoop of their perfectly untouched Boston townhouse. They look like they spent the 'war' fixing Tom Collins and playing charades.

Anyway, for those of you who care, I would give it a 'super-absorbent' rating.