War of the Worlds (2005)

This film has great special effects and plot tension but feels on the whole too slick and packaged. You can't see enough detail in the effects, which seem to burst out of nowhere, right on cue. (Tom Cruise flees the initial alien onslaught with split-second timing, human bodies disintegrating at his elbows and his ears.) There's a wealth of suspense, but it's big-movie, SFX-induced suspense so it feels smarmy or painted-on; this movie made me want to see the original film, with its story-driven suspense, even more than ever. Four stars.