relax Binky just an honorable mention from Robbins is all to give you the whole picture of why it stunk on many levels.
Ok so in your opinion watching Tom Cruise run around and bond with his kids is what does it for you in films fine - have SPielberg entitle it "Tom Cruise bonds with kids while pesky aliens get in the way" and release it to lifetime.
you want to make War of the worlds and make it gee i dont know about war of the fricking worlds then do it correctly and move the focus to that ;)
so to sum up, it was not true to the book, did not integrate the best elements of the book and the original movie was better. :)
have a nice day