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Reel To Reel:
War Of The Worlds

How It Rates: ***
Starring: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Intense Alien Ransacking

Preconceived Notions: Hope this has some brains to go with the effects. With Spielberg, there's hope.
The Bottom Line: Who's Tom Cruise?

DreamWorks worried Tom Cruise's fix with Katie Holmes could doom this picture. He might as well have been hooking up with Katie Couric. Dakota Fanning steals this picture, not in a cute way but in a vulnerable way. And if a multimillion dollar actor is upstaged by a kid, you wonder if the bloated budget could have been trimmed with somebody from the B-list. After all, Steven Spielberg has done wonders with no-names just as long as the story's good.

War Of The Worlds rips from one of the best in film that stews Independence Day, Alien, and The Day After Tomorrow. But give Spielberg credit for breaking the cardinal rule of disaster flicks: Cruise's character, Ray Ferrier, a working-class divorced father of two, isn't the only one in the world who knows why aliens are ripping up New York City and how to fight back. He's got other concerns: two estranged kids, Rachel (Fanning) and Robbie (Justin Chatwin), pushed into mandatory visitation.

The invasion starts with the weather. Lightning strikes the ground and giant tripods start rising from the boroughs of New York City, vaporizing anybody who gets in their way. Running is about the only thing you can do, since -- true to the H.G. Wells novel and previous film -- magnetism has disabled car ignitions. But Ray manages to jack a working car and drive off towards Boston, trying to get the kids back to Mom.

Fanning is totally into her role as the confused, frightened child. Chatwin is, well, there, but seems to be there simply because the script needed more tension. Robbie tries more than once to run off with the soldiers fighting against the invaders, which left me scratching my head because in other scenes he's more devoted to his kid sister than Dad. And Cruise's role? We see so many shots of him looking dazed, confused or bewildered I wondered if his contract paid him by the look. At times he seems lost in his own movie. At least we know why Fanning's mugging for the camera.

The special effects, powered by Industrial Light & Magic, are phenomenal. Dennis Muren, longtime ILM guru, pulls out all the CGI stops. But Spielberg remains the master. He chooses to focus the story on Ray and the kids' perspectives. One particular scene -- involving Cruise and company hiding from an alien probe in a basement -- is pulled off with razor-sharp tension. Unlike the first film, we do get a look at the aliens outside their ship. Even E.T. would run from these guys.

Spielberg's focus on fear, doubt, and dread make this picture highly watchable in spite of Cruise's excessive face time. This elevates this story to a suspense-thriller from a shallow, effects-heavy disaster film anybody else would have made.