My summation of this film, as we left the theater?

Well, when this comes out on television, we won't have to watch it at all. Not even a piece.

Yeah, it was that bad. Had my chin in my hands after the first hour, checking my watch every ten minutes. Not that it's boring, mind you. Non-stop action and thrills from beginning to end. "Intense" was the way Chuck described it.

The special effects, by the way, were superb. As were the invading aliens. And all (or almost all) their alien equipment.

It was the people that were stupid. Unreal.

I feel I want to compile a list here, of all the things that real people would never do, but people (i.e. Tom Cruise's character) do in this movie. But if you haven't seen the film yet, why ruin it for you?

You may love it. Youngest son did (tonight was his second viewing). Wife and eldest son seemed happy with it, too. Although I was probably too busy ranting afterward for them to bother speaking up if they did.

The couple in front of us, however, left quickly less than halfway through the film. Either they felt the same as I about the movie, or they'd seen all but the beginning before. Or she was grossed/stressed out. Or his hands were going where they weren't supposed to.

But hey, is there anyone out there born after WWII who doesn't know what an EMP is, and what it does to electronics, especially cars? Who wouldn't recognize immediately what has happened when all electronic gadgets, particularly cars, simultaneously quit working?

Other things real people would never do:

Leave your 10-yr old daughter (who wisely wants to run away with all the other civilians) alone as you try to rationally talk with your teenage son about why he shouldn't stand on a ridge with the military while they try to strike back at the aliens.

Allow a mob to drag you and your son from your car when you have a perfectly functional handgun in your waistband.

Struggle to get on a huge ferry boat full of people (prey) when aliens approach. Nothing like fighting to add yourself to the floating buffet.

Hide, quiet as a mouse in a basement, as the aliens search and destroy, and then sing lullabyes to your daughter as their machines hover above.

You have to do something really unpleasant to immediately silence a source of noise that could lead the lethal machines to your hiding place. So, do you:
a) quietly blindfold your daughter, as the noise continues all the while, and calm her down before you close the door, leaving her out with the monsters, so you can deal with the noise in private?
b) anything else.

You're a television news crew who have come upon a plane wreck, and do the only really intelligent thing I saw anybody do (grab up the bottled water). When encountering a human male near the wreck, and alien noises signal the imminent approach of the creatures, do you:
a) ask to interview the human?
b) anything else.

If you answered "a" to either of the above, go see this flick. You'll like it.

To his credit, Chuck tried hard to get us to switch, and see Cinderella Man instead. Which actually had been my choice. If it hadn't meant a 45-minute wait for the starting time, I would have swapped theaters.

And now, of course, that 45-minute waste of time seems so cheap.