Spielberg isn’t to blame for everything that’s wrong in this movie. I’ve always thought that the abrupt end to the story is an unavoidable let down, so I don’t blame Spielberg for the anticlimactic last bit. Beyond that, though, it’s all on him.

The action is intense, it managed to startle the g-phrase with a few good scares, and Tom Cruise (for a man who appears to be mildly insane) fit his role about as well as Dakota Fanning, who was truly impressive. The special effects are some of the best that you’ll see this year--truly worth seeing on the big screen in a much larger than life setting--and the sound work is spectacular. In many ways, it’s the perfect summer flick: big, dumb, action packed, and pretty.

So, how is it that I was so disappointed? It’s because Spielberg made the mistake of frontloading the movie with all the good stuff--almost completely opposite his buddy’s Revenge of the Sith. For the first twenty minutes of ROTS, I was convinced that the movie wasn’t going to rise above the first two prequel episodes. After that first twenty minutes was up, though, I was sucked into the energy and motion and even the quiet, little emotional bits. By the end of the movie, I had a smile on my face, I had mostly forgotten the first act, and I was a satisfied customer.

Through the thrilling first two thirds of the movie, I did my best to ignore inconsistencies and plot holes. The ride was far too enjoyable to worry about little things. Then I watched hordes of refugees storming up a hill toward major combat, pulling along their children. This didn’t make sense.

Let me pain the picture for you further: the explosions are almost teeth jarring in the movie theater, there are combat aircraft screaming overhead, helicopters are moving in for the attack, a stream of Army vehicles, including a main battle tank, are moving up that same slope toward the aliens. And all the refugees are moving with them toward the eerily glowing sky and the sounds of destruction. Well, that didn’t make much sense.

I squirmed a bit in my seat, but resolved to get back into the flow of the movie. Spielberg wouldn’t let me.

The next bit, after said refugees start running away from the hill that they had just been climbing, was even worse. The random-seeming series of scenes with Tim Robbins (doing a fine job as a pleasantly creepy ambulance driver) didn’t work well. Without giving away any of the surprises during his cameo, I will simply say that I didn’t think any of it fit terribly well with the rest of the movie and whatever suspension of disbelief I had worked up was dealt a few more serious blows.

From there on, the pace slowed, the movie made less and less sense, all up until the anti-climactic climax where the tripods catch colds and start dying--a point at which I was really wanting to leave the theater. The refrain kept playing through my head: are we there yet? Unfortunately not, though.

The worst part of the movie is couched directly between the demise of the invaders and the wonderfully voiced epilogue. As a sappy, Christmas card ending, it rivals the ending to Spielberg’s AI for being ludicrous and out of touch with the rest of the story. Hideous.

I walked out of the theater, mostly having forgotten all the good bits up front, happy to be leaving, and not particularly satisfied. Still, there is much to be said for those first two acts and a lot of enjoyment to be had in those special effects and all-engrossing sound effects that make the invaders seem remarkably realistic and terrifyingly otherworldly. In the end, I didn’t feel like I had completely wasted my money.

There was a point, toward the beginning, where I thought that I’d want to buy the DVD; by the time I left the theater, that urge was gone. It could’ve been much better.