Let's begin...
Lost in Space (PG-13)
IMDb; Movie Tome; Rotten Tomatoes; Wikipedia
Based on the old TV series (see campy shows). The movie is rather more serious than the series, though still somewhat amusing, I guess. Earth has nearly used up its resources, so all the nations have started working together, and a mission has been planned to send a sleeper ship to a distant star system, to build a hyperspace gate, while a gate is being built near Earth. Then ships would be able to travel instantaneously between star systems, and colonize the new world. The mission is led by a scientist named Prof. John Robinson, who will be going along with his family: his wife, Dr. Maureen Robinson, daughters, Dr. Judy Robinson and Penny (all three of whom we kinda like), and son Will. Judy, like her father, mostly concentrates on her work; Penny is mainly upset to be leaving behind her whole world; and Will is upset that his dad never has time for him, and doesn't pay attention to his science projects.
There are terrorists called the Sedition, who hired a doctor, Zachary Smith, who was involved in the mission, to sabotage it. First this involved killing the mission's pilot, but when he was replaced with Major Don West, Smith was sent to reprogram the mission's robot to destroy the Robinson family and the ship. However, his employers double-crossed him, so he was stuck on the doomed ship, the Jupiter. So he ended up reviving the Robinsons from cryostasis to help deactivate the robot and fix the ship. However, because of damage to navigation systems, the ship is off course and headed into the sun, so they take the drastic step of engaging the hyperdrive, which is unpredictable....
They wind up in an unfamiliar system, where they coincidentally find a ship that had been sent out to find them. Apparently, they were in the future. And they were attacked by robotic spiders. And um... well eventually they went down to the planet... and... I dunno. It's weird. There's a bubble of some sort, and some of them went in... and found a grown-up Will, who had built like a time portal, which one person could go through, into the past. I don't really know what else to say, it's all rather weird. I could barely comprehend it, let alone explain it. It's really not that good, but I suppose it's enjoyable enough, if you don't mind that it doesn't make much sense....
War of the Worlds (PG-13)
IMDb; Movie Tome; official website; Rotten Tomatoes; Wikipedia
The movie opens and closes with Morgan Freeman narrating opening and closing passages from H.G. Wells' novel. So... it's nice to have some familiar stuff, because precious little in between those narrations will be familiar. Of course, I don't think I've ever actually read the book, though I've heard a radio adaptation of it before (by L.A. Theatre Works, as well as the 1938 Orson Welles version, which I presume we've all heard at some point, yes?). Anyway, I've nothing against the movie at all. As a disaster movie, it's pretty damn good, in my opinion. As science fiction... eh, not so much. I mean, it's fine and all, but there's not much to think about, here, it's all pretty visceral. Still, since it's based on one of the classics of the science fiction genre, I'll throw the film a bone and include it in this category rather than "action-adventure" or whatever.
It follows a divorced man named Ray Ferrier (played by Tom Cruise), whose ex-wife and her new husband drop off Ray's teenaged son Robbie and 10-year-old daughter Rachel (played by Dakota Fanning) for the weekend or whatever. Things are somewhat awkward between Ray and his kids, especially with Robbie. But soon enough, there's a freakish lightning storm, and everything electrical stops working. Then gigantic tripods come up out of the ground and start shooting lasers all over the place. Lots of death and destruction. Everyone starts panicking, naturally enough. Ray finds a working vehicle, and takes his kids off in attempt to reach their mother and stepfather in Boston. And stuff happens along the way. Tons and tons and tons more death and destruction and panicking people. Eventually Robbie goes off on his own, and Ray and Rachel end up taking shelter with a guy named Harlan Ogilvy, a few of whose lines are clearly inspired by one of the characters in the novel.
Well, aside from giving characters names, and having a family make a journey instead of a solitary man, and adding tons of special effects, and having the aliens not be from Mars, specifically (no telling where these buggers are from, in the movie), and of course being set in the present day, um... I don't think that much has changed. Except for all the, you know, details. So it should come as no surprise to anyone how the invasion is ultimately thwarted. I dunno, there's probably not much point to the movie, really, other than making the studio and actors a bunch of money. Still, I thought it was fairly cool.