Steven Spielberg directs Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning and Tim Robbins in this 9/11 inflected remake of the classic HG Wells sci-fi invasion story. 

Along with A.I., this is one of the best late period Spielberg blockbusters – albeit equally as divisive. It is that ending again, isn’t it? Spielberg, ever since Jurassic Park, has had real trouble dismounting. There either are indulgent, multiple codas or conclusions that shift too abruptly to happy and then credits. Here the doomed teenage son returning home is what jars with people. I don’t have any really issues with a film so unrelentingly bleak having a few rays of unexpected sunshine at its end. Bleak? Yep,  this is one of the darkest mainstream tentpoles ever released. A movie that consistently visually evokes the footage of the World Trade Centre’s destruction and anguished chaotic aftermath. A movie that then turns Tom Cruise into a clamouring refugee, then a cold blooded killer, then a suicide bomber. A movie that is clearly made from wholemeal rather than chaff. The fact that it includes utterly gripping action sequences (that initial attack, that movie magic seamless one-shot race along the highway, the ferry disaster) plus a convincing character arc for Cruise means it succeeds as a thrill ride and star vehicle as well as a topical metaphor on intervention, revenge and occupation. The second half shifts away from chilling allegory to expressionist fantasy; fields of red weed and basements of shadows. This is the most surreal we have seen Steven Spielrock go. And that closing shot of Cruise – the irresponsible, absent Dad who finally came through – left outside the family home, evokes The Searchers, another rousing classic on the futility of revenge. Maybe Spielberg isn’t so awful at endings after all?

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