Hard to dislike Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, just as its hard

to dislike a big piece of chocolate cake. There’s no “there” there,

but it’s thrilling and exceptionally well made. I am dying to know

how they shot the sequence with Cruise and family in the speeding

minivan where the camera seems to fly around them and zoom in and out.

Unless they have invented some kind of hovering copter-com, I am

stumped by that one. Cruise makes a decent Everyman, saving his

megawatt smile and cocky charm for Oprah, or Katie maybe. Tim Robbins

is pretty cartoony, but he didn’t take me out of the movie.

Spielberg’s choice of storyline — divorced Dad learns to parent — is

simple but effective. You come for the aliens, you stay for the love.