[Borges]

People are focusing too much on Cruise and his family. This movie is a throwback to stuff like Duel. No one complained that you didn't get to know Desnnis Weaver's family there. Or that you never find out why The birds were attacking in The Birds.

If there was ever a Director-is-the-Star movie this is one. That shot of the train going by with the cabins on fire and the little girl standing at the backs of a river with the bodies floating by was poetry. Not to mention the almost nonsetp tension of the first hour. Forget Cruise! :-)

[durasell]

I can't believe you just compared Spielberg to Hitchcock. For that matter, I can't believe you compared the Spielberg of the 1970s to the Spielberg who has lived in a bubble of his own design for the last quarter century.

[WorkingClassFilth]

You indict yourself - the scenes you mention were never in the original novella and had nothing to do with Wells, his personal vision or the meaning of life. This film was largely a portrait of a disintegrated modern family fleshed out by wooden actors that are full of themselves. It blew and you know it. Just go watch 'The Lord of the Rings' and quit trying to make something of nothing.