War of the Worlds (2005)

Spielberg tries his hand at the end of the world, can't quite commit to it (what a whiff of an ending!); still, damn good film. If a director with more faith in the film's dark vision had done this, it might be the year's crowning achievement -- the first two-thirds are as compelling a vision of the apocalypse as any I've seen. Parallels to 9/11 are myriad and not exactly subtle, but you should probably consult other, smarter critics about that since I've been sitting on this review for too damn long now. Tom Cruise: still underrated, especially for his work here (in which he takes his trademarked cocksureness and spins it just enough so that we see the facade crumbling as the man tries, desperately, to hold it together). Also, Dakota Fanning: still annoying.

Grade: B