Thinkcorps

Let’s get this outta the way: I did not like this movie for so many reasons. I don’t recommend you see it. There’s better ways to spend 2 hours. Lots of ways.

It has no plot (and no real suspense, either, since if you’re breathing, you should know the storyline). Morgan Freeman as narrator supplies every single bit of plot description and defuses any and all suspensefulness in two nuggets at the film’s beginning and end. So for the remaining 1:56, we just follow along while Tom “He’s cocky, but he’s the best” Cruise scurries from Jersey to Boston with daughter and son in tow.

Oh, and lots of stuff gets blowed up—reeaal good.

This is as close a remake of Day After Tomorrow that’s not a remake of Day After Tomorrow as you will ever see. (And somehow, I saw both of them. Ouch.)

I just have to ask: why do aliens bury their war machines deep in the Earth millions of years in the past, only to show up later to get in and drive them over our cities? I mean, if they were here already, why not just drive ‘em around then? Get it over with? And how is it that man, who’s basically instinctually driven to dig holes in the ground like a dog, hasn’t happened to unearth at least one of these machines? I mean, they’re supposedly buried everywhere, right?

Then there’s Spielberg’s genius scene in which the Amtrak goes hurtling by in flames for no apparent reason but to let us know that “No, they couldn’t have just taken the train up there.” Thanks for clearing that up, Stevie.

The film also suffers from those “moments of inane dialog” where the characters don’t do the obvious normal thing. When dickhead teenage son blows up in front of CruiseDad in the middle of fleeing the ginormous hoovering death machines, I kept thinking – no hoping – that Cruise would belt the kid and drag him off. (That’s just good parenting, IMO.) But no, they only reach an impasse of wills, and not having the space or a nearby Starbucks to talk it out, they simmer until later when the son demands to scurry over to his own death (because he “has to see”), despite the clear fact that there’s nothing anyone – anyone – can do. To his fault, Spielberg never makes clear whether you can actually defeat aliens just by “keepin’ it real”.

And Tim Robbins? Why is he in this movie?

Luckily, the movie evenutally ended and we left, getting a snack on the way home. So, “Thank god for Voodoo Donuts.” Seriously, those are some good donuts.