retraction

[antonin]

I am going to retract what I said about War of the Worlds. After seeing the film, I think we have a pretty positive portrait here.
When we first meet Tom Cruise, he is the typical divorced Dad: disenfranchised and forced to see his kids 4 days a month while his EX galavants about WITH HER RICH HUSBAND AND TOM STILL HAS TO PAY HER CS.
There is no information given in the film that tom caused the divorce, and from the info given, it looks like his wife left him for a richer man.
Well, Tom kicks ass and saves his kids.

Here's a brief excerpt from a magazine backing up my point:

In War of the Worlds, Cruise plays the divorced father who must flee with his young daughter (Dakota Fanning) and teenage son (Justin Chatwin) when aliens lay siege to their New Jersey hometown. Spielberg said Cruise's father character stands in sharp contrast to Richard Dreyfuss' dad character in Close Encounters, who left his family to board an alien ship. "I was never really conscious of that," Spielberg said. "I know, in Close Encounters, certainly, as I wrote the script, it was about a man whose insatiable curiosity—more than just curiosity, a developing obsession, and a kind of psychic implantation—drew him away from his family and, ... only looking back once, walked onto the mothership. Now that was before I had kids. That was 1977. So I wrote that blithely. Today, I would never have the guy leaving his family to go on the mothership. I would have the guy doing everything he could to protect his children. So in a sense, War of the Worlds does reflect my own maturity in my own life growing up and now having seven children."

[flewwellin]

Glad you posted this cause I wasn't going to even consider watching it!  I am not a fan of Tom Cruise and didn't think it looked too good.  Now I will be going to watch it and make sure DH sees it as well.

[dipper]

I went to see that movie and that it was awesome.  

As for his parenting skills, he appears to be struggling at long hours with little money left for himself - he is tired and frustrated.  The son is a typical teen in the sense that he is influenced by the stepdad's money, wants his dad, but resents the fact that his dad is not with him...

Now, one thing that I found myself getting riled about - the ex wife comes into HIS home nosing around....the new husband bows out....but the ex is going all over HIS home.....

Overall, I think the movie portrayed him as a dad struggling to provide and having to compete with the super rich and being treated with little respect from the exwife-  which of course has rubbed off on the children.....

[flewwellin]

I think that a lot of families can relate to what this father is going through.  In my Dh's case his ex's parents are well off and paid for the attorney that allowed her to take the kids out of Dh's life.  This happened last summer and it seems that whatever she wanted to accomplish (having her new husband be their daddy) has worked.  They are here throughout the whole year 7 out of 52 wks.  So they are growing up (ages 6 & 4 ) more or less without their daddy.  We can't afford to go see them cause the child support is so high, and they live 500+ miles away.  We don't have anywhere to stay other than a hotel/motel when we go up.  Anyway, this movie sounds like it's going to strike home with all the similarities it has.

[Ref]

The first was the mom going through all of the dad's stuff in HIS home and he was so beaten down that he did nothing. (Funny that he was too hurt to confront his ex about her disrespect, but he was able to take on a colony of aliens)

The second was the son's attitude towards his dad. Calling him by his first name and acting like he was sentenced to be with his dad.

The third were some references to current world issues (I don't want to spoil the movie).

It was very good and I would recommend it to anyone, even with cazy Tom Cruise in it.

Oh yeah! If you see the movie, notice how the daughter acts towads the son vs how she acts towards the dad.