Review: War of the Worlds

Well, this isn't a review per se, just a few thoughts on this summer blockbuster...

The Good
Dakota Fanning is the cutest, coolest, most wise-assed daughter a NJ container ship unloader could have. I've read reviews saying all this girl did was scream her way through the movie -- NOT TRUE. She is a breath of fresh air. Let's hope she keeps making movies -- good movies -- and doesn't turn into the next Lindsay Lohan. This girl has quite a career ahead of her.

The Bad
Not enough action. "WHAT?" you might say. Ok, there was plenty of action -- Tripods with vaporizer beams, air strikes by Apache helicopters, Marines peppering tripods with Javelin missiles -- it was just diluted by human drama [see below] -- especially lefty human drama. Not every movie needs some deep meaning! Can't we just be invaded by aliens for no reason whatsoever once in a while? Must we be compared to some plague and be forced to look into our hearts to know why we are the victims? If it doesn't work for understanding Al Qaeda, it won't work for aliens driving tripods. Sorry, it's true. Go back to hugging trees and blocking court nominations.

The Ugly
Tim Robbins. Need I say more? His character sucked -- plain and simple. I'm happy Tom Cruise's character killed him. Damn lefty. It would not have been so bad had his character not delivered his anti-war, anti-Iraq propaganda during the "this is way too long of a scene for the unmedicated masses" basement hideout scene. Tim's character says something like, "they're going to lose. The occupying force always loses." Great. That's what we need to hear, a whiny lefty delivering prophecies. Thanks, but no thanks. I have no qualms with the line, it just the combination of the line and who delivered it. It might just as well have been Susan Sarandon.

Enough for now.

*grumble*