Lights up.
Fergal enters the stage, politely greets the audience.

Fergal: Good afternoon. Tonight I bring you a tale of murder. The victim is perhaps one of the greatest works of fiction of our time. Not just because it wrote the rules for almost every Science Fiction yarn of alien life, not just because it was one of the most chilling commentaries on the English Empire, and not just because it is still loved by readers today. No the War of the Worlds has survived becoming a George Pal adventure, the lyrical barrages from the Moody Blues and David bloody Essex. But what it can't survive is being used a film so desperate to be seen as "Worthy" that it treats it's audience as Simpletons.

Fergal: The first blow comes here, in the first few minutes. Tom Cruise has rapidly become one of the most popular actors in the world. And with good reason. Look here at these clips. This is him in A Few Good Men, this is him in Rain Man. You see that? How he looks distraught and as though he is carrying the world on his shoulders? Or here, facing off against Jack Nicholson? And here, in Magnolia being the worlds greatest Bastard? THAT is why he has his reputation.

Fergal: And here he is in the War of the Worlds, staring vaguely into the Middle Distance. This my friends is not acting. This is a man with one expression, for an entire film. As it happens in this scene he is wondering if he has to kill a man to protect his daughter. Although, to be honest he could be wondering if he smells pizza, or if he just stood in something.

Fergal: Here he is at work. Look, he drives a big crane at the docks, wow... Wouldn't it be great if they used that in some clever psychological way? Have him wondering if he is at all different from Martians in their machines? Er... it might be, so they wont. Lets fast forward.

Fergal: Ah! Here we go, a great big lightning bolt strikes the Earth and suddenly nothing electrical works. This is called an EMP or Electro Magnetic Pulse. For those of you who didn't pay attention in Physics at school, there is a relationship between electricity and magnetism. One creates the other. An EMP scrambles that, and effectively kills electrical stuff. Batteries, micro chips, coils, the lot. It screws up the magnetic fields of the conductors. Or something.

Fergal: Ah yes, Tom tells a mechanic mate that to fix that car he should replace the coils. The problem? You got it, any coils or solonoids, or batteries, or GPS or Walkmen in the range of the EMP will be useless too. Oh hey! Here we go, the alien emerges from the cylinder, and people are filming it on their camera phones? Maybe those phones are magic, and that video camera, and those cameras... I mean, how did they survive the EMP?

Fergal: Fast forward... Magically the car that Toms Mate was fixing works. How? If the entire city was blanked out by the EMP, how did he get the only solonoids in the city that werent scrambled? Coming to think of it, how much of that car relies on electricity? The starter motor? Power Steering? Lights?

Fergal: This is meant to be a tense scene, you know. The aliens are coming, but no one can send a warning as technology is dead. Except the car and the magic phones people were recording the alien with...

Fergal: The second moment that makes me want to scream at the scene. The rout of ManKind is one of the moving, epic moments of the book. So this scene with refugees has the potential to make or break this film. Look on the horrizon, you can see the on going war on the other side of the hill. Explosions and the like. People are generally trying to move away from the destruction. Except it all changes...Here! See! Soldiers turn up in tanks and humvees, and watch what the disposessed and distraught crowds do. They start... Following the soldiers. That's right, they are running for their lives...TOWARDS CERTAIN DEATH!

Fergal: Here, the scene shifts to the frontline, and EVERYONE is running towards their doom. Every one except Tom! What is this? Do the Martians have a Lemming Ray that turns the worlds population into utter, utter idiots? I'm sorry, but under what circumstances does it become a good idea to run INTO the unkillable dealers of death in their unstoppable doom machines?

Fergal: Oh look! Another sensible person. Tim Robbins is hiding in a barn! Surely Tom is saved now? I mean it's not like the moment Robbins opens his mouth he has the "Underlying Malice" dial turned up to 11.

Fergal: Ok. At THIS point Robbins is dead. Now you COULD believe that you have been watching an alien invasion movie all this time, but what you have actually been watching is Dakota Fanning becoming more and more in need of therapy. Lets look at it from her point of view: She was troubled to begin with. She was being dumped on her dad who she doesn't like. She has seen dead bodies, aliens, more dead bodies, a plane crash, and her dad is killing a guy. That song they make her sing? She is going to be having nightmares about that for years. Oh, and Big Brother was hit by the Lemming Ray. He actually wants to go get killed by the aliens.Yeah, watching a girl suffer for two hours, who doesn't find this fun. I'm a little worried that this is a film endured, not enjoyed.

Fergal: You can watch Schindlers list, about very real horrific events, and be swept along by them. They are shocking, they are morbid, they make you think. They are filmed by the same guy, but this? This is a biger horror movie than any other. What does dumping a plane crash on the poor girl do? it doesn't develope her character, it doesn't move the plot along. It just says "Hey! Be a little more depressed!"

Fergal: But the worst crime this film does? It doesn't tell the story of the War of the Worlds, except a few bare bones moments. The book was the story of a man seperated from his true love as the empire he lives in is decimated and succumbs to an even greater force, mirroring their own conquest. This is a film about a divorced dad proving himself to his daughter and son by not dying.

Fergal: If you feel de ja vu during this movie you aren't alone. here is a cut of the film I made using only scenes from other films by the same director. Here we go... That disfunctional dad is from Close Encounters. Oh look, people out running explosions! We have lots of those! The car chase with the kid in the car, and all those crowds? Indiana Jones. Hey, Tom Cruise looking into middle distance? Minority report. Ok, the silent game of cat and mouse? That's Jurrasic Park. Almost a shot for shot twin to the game of cat and mouse with the martian probe in War. They even use the mirrored surface. Look! Soldiers! That is from Saving Private Ryan. Refugees from Schindlers List. Dead bodies from that film too. Some more big explosions, dont mind those... The dad saving his kid (who doesn't like him) in the water? Jaws! Hey look! famalies being reunited and happy! That is just about every film Steven S. has EVER made.

Fergal: So... the science is bad? Check. The people do stuff that does not make sense? Check. All your sense of fun or entertainment destroyed? Check. What have I missed... Oh yeah. The martian plan. They buried their war machines under the earth long before human history. One character says "millions" of years ago. Well, isn't it lucky that they knew where all those continents would shift, where the human race would settle, where we would make our cities. Are there thousands of the poor aliens drowning at the bottom of the oceans, because they miscalculated what would happen when Pangea broke up? And why didn't they just take over the world then? Why wait for us to be around with weapons and bombs and things?

Fergal: Happily, as in the book, they never invented peneciline. So our bacteria wipes them out. Now Tom shows off by realising that the monsters are vulnerable before any of those highly trained soldiers. So not only are the population of America suicidal cattle, their soldiers are thickies too.

Fergal: Now if you will excuse me, I feel I have to tell Jeff Wayne that all is forgiven.