…Little Girl Shrieks for Two Hours and Does Nothing Else.

So tonight I saw War of the Worlds with some friends (it was DVRed) and while I appreciated the HG Wells source and his wonderful ideas about alien invasion, I didn’t quite get some of the character bits.

For instance, the main characters in the story are a dad named Ray (Tom Cruise) and his two kids– a teenage boy and a 10 year old girl. Ray spends the entire movie covering the little girl’s eyes because when she can actually see what’s happening around her, she shrieks. This seems to be her entire purpose.

Cue Imagination…

Director: Okay, small blonde child, on the count of three, scream really loud!
Little Girl: Do you want me to run around? Act like I’m hiding? Cover my face? Hit something?
Director: No, just scream your head off so that all of the aliens everywhere can hear you. That’s what all little girls do, right?

Imagination exits, stage left.

Seriously. The child spent about half of the movie holding stock still and shrieking for about 2 second intervals. Never longer, never shorter, and never with any running or defending herself involved. She spent the whole time being hauled around by either her brother or her dad. What purpose do you serve, little girl??

Other things that make no sense include people in mass migration groups walking toward cities…. where the aliens are waiting (in the cities) to wipe out people, which is more easily accomplished by these people being in large groups. Why does no one just hide out in the country somewhere?

And, of course, the dad and the kids reunite after being separated and manage to find their mom and their grandparents in a house that’s still standing when 95% of the population is dead and about that many houses are decimated. Of course.

*sigh*

Maybe I’ll go see the Smurfs this week. I’m sure it’ll make more sense than this.