Okay, if you’re going to go see this movie, WARNING: It is not the War of the Worlds that was on TV in the late eighties. I haven’t seen the original series, nor did I read the book by H.G. Wells, so it might match up with those, but if you’re expecting, as I did, to watch to a couple of species battling it out, clear your mind. This story is told only from the perspective of an average narcissistic guy (played by Tom Cruise) and his two narcissistic kids (Rachel and Robbie) trying to save themselves as a dominant alien force attacks the world.

Since I was expecting the movie to be a standard science fiction battle, I assumed, as I was watching Cruise and kids running away from the aliens that it was all just a background story for the real movie. But the background story never stopped and so when the movie ended without any great battles, there seemed to be a collective “But, where was the movie?” coming from most of us in attendance.

However, if you go in knowing that it will just be the story of one family’s perspective during an alien attack, you might actually enjoy it. Director Steven Spielberg has certainly gotten off science fiction formula by getting his hands dirty and going into the underbelly of the giant battles we usually get to watch. It was like seeing the 1996 alien-attack film, “Independence Day”, from the inside.

So, if I wasn’t expecting a different movie, I think I would have found the insider-perspective to be quite effective and very scary. It does give you an interesting illustration of what it might feel like to be under attack from a superior alien race.

Ultimately, though, even if I had been briefed on the premise before hand, I still couldn’t fully recommend the film as the three characters with whom we’re going along for the ride are too annoying to keep us company. First, Cruise’s character Ray Ferrier seems obsessed with getting his kids to their mom, his ex-wife, in Boston, where she is just as likely to be under attack as they are.

As well, for the most part, while it is interesting to have Cruise play a non-heroic lead, the character’s unwillingness to share his occasionally successful survival strategies with others is painful to watch. Meanwhile, the daughter (Dakota Fanning) seems to only care about herself and seeing her mommy again. And, of course, she has the classic scene of staring at the approaching monster instead of running away from it, forcing her dad to have to rescue her. The closest to redeeming member of the trio is the son (Justin Chatwin) who seems to have some concern beyond his own family’s welfare, but this is strongly overshadowed by his fascination with watching the battles like they’re a video game. This, I assume, was Spielberg’s jab at the current young generation’s desensitized need to feast its eyes on more and more violent images, but I found the illustration of his point to be too far-fetched as I couldn’t imagine a teenager, desensitized or not, stopping to watch rampaging aliens coming right at him.

In the end, I stopped caring about the family, but I was still interested in the fate of the world, so it was still scary. I recommend waiting for video to judge for yourself, but if you can’t wait, just remember not to expect a big epic, and you should be fine.