When WAR OF THE WORLDS opens with TOM CRUISE as a longshoreman/head crane operator I was hesitant, but I went along with it.  I even swallowed the bit about the deadbeat dad thing.  He's just too boyish for a teenage son and know-it-all daughter who have to buck up and weekend with the divorced, slob, dad.

  But soon all of that is meaningless, as New Jersey begins to bloom giant, laser toting triangular tripods right from the pavement.  Who cares if TOM'S a dockworker, or if he repairs car engines on his kitchen table, or only has sour milk in the frig?  It no longer matters that he is in the midst of a shameless, personal publicity stunt that has him entwined with KATIE HOLMES, BROOKE SHIELDS and the American Psychiatry community in a public smackdown of silly proportions. 

  None of that matters once the tripods start demolishing bridges, ripping up the streets and vaporizing Jerseans in TOM'S neighborhood.  All that matters is he has got to survive.

  Rumors are the budget for this new SPIELBERG film approached $200 million, and the proof is definitely on the screen.  The special effects are effective and amazing, if not way too loud.  (Bring earplugs if you plan to use your ears after seeing this film.)

  But the story fails to engender the promise of WAR OF THE WORLDS.  This is TOM CRUISE'S war, and he's just not the guy I want fighting for my planet.  Not to mention there really is no fight in this war.

  The tripods are invinceable, emitting a force field that makes the Star Trek shields look obsolete.  Nothing the army or air force can do, and they do it noisily, has even the tiniest effect on these alien cranes.   Perhaps TOM can climb aboard one and reprogram their motherboards?  Or maybe drop a cargo container on them.

But no, nothing stops these things.  And there are thousands of them.  Game over man.  You thought BILL PAXTON had an uphill climb with those alien things.  Even BILL PULLMAN in INDEPENDENCE DAY had a fighting chance to save the “World.”  This is essentially the same movie, but without a fight.

  At one point early in the film, TOM stumbles upon a news crew, with a remote satellite and some connection to the rest of the local area, not to mention the “World.”  A glimmer of hope stirs in my movie-viewing psyche-we can beat these things.  Somehow we’re going to join forces with this crew, and they will help us band together with the rest of the “World”, and we can fashion a defense.

  Not so.  There is no defense.  The “World” is beaten.

  Yet, somehow TOM manages to keep him and his 2 ungrateful kids just beyond the reach of the laser beams.  Go figure. 

  It's little more than a race to stay ahead of the marauding machines, as they churn through the country, and for all we know the rest of the world.  All we really see is the immediate surroundings of TOM on his journey to save his kids.  That is the major flaw of this WAR OF THE WORLDS film.  Where is the rest of the world?  And where is the war?

  There is really no battle for the survival of the planet.  There is no glimmer of hope for humanity.  You can't run.  You can't hide.  You’re dust.  Unless you're TOM CRUISE.

  So hide he does, for 30 minutes of the film with TIM ROBBINS, who plays a renegade farmer, militiaman, presumably one of the last on a killing field where the tripods apparently disintegrated TOM'S son, who broke away from the family unit to play out his coming of age, manhood moment to join the resistance.  What resistance?  Tanks and F-14's are being turned away in flames, but this 17-year old has TOM'S genes so give it a try he does, much to the feigned heartbreak of daddy CRUISE.

  Anyway, the tripods are turning everything to dust, but somehow they get a sudden burst of curiosity when they ramble across the farmhouse in which TOM and TIM and constantly screaming DAKOTA FANING are holed up.  To say this WAR OF THE WORLDS has holes is to say Christian Science is a cult.  (The tripods are gathering humans in cages to extract their blood to grow something, just what, is not clear.)   Let's not go there.

  The bottom line-there is no War of the Worlds, just despair, hopelessness, destruction, and a fortuitous, resilient TOM CRUISE. 

  And then, as if by magic, the tripods fail.  TOM is reunited with his son, and the rest of his immediate family, all of which are inexplicably untouched by the carnage.  As quickly as the tripods emerged, they are gone and all is right again with the world.

  Inside, as it was outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theater Monday night, where TOM orchestrated a fantasmic celebration, summoning the array of media in Los Angeles to witness he and KATIE arrive via motorcycle and mingle with his many fans, this is TOM CRUISE’S world, war or not, and we’re all just living in it.

Cirque du Soleil has a new production in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Hotel, entitled KÀ.  Inspired by the ancient Egyptian belief that each person has an invisible spirit that guides the body through this life and into the next, KÀ is indeed spiritual.

 It combines elements of martial arts, acrobatics, puppetry, interactive video projections and pyrotechnics to tell a tale of Imperial twins on an adventurous journey.  It’s kind of like Cirque meets Peter Pan meets the most awesome rock wall in the universe.  To give you an idea of the fly-a-bouts in this show, there are more than 160 harnesses, with 21 different types for the artists in the show.

The stage is spectacular, as it morphs from a traditional show stage to a vertical monster upon which characters traverse and descend and combat and fly about.  There are actually 2 decks, which make up the stage, one weighing in at 80,000 pounds the other 100,000 pounds.  They are able to slide out like a drawer to almost 50 feet, and pivot 360 degrees and tilt from flat to 110 degrees.

Like all Cirque productions, there are moments of awe and wonder.  But the scale and size of this show set it apart from the others.  The theater seats nearly 2000 people.  Every seat in the theater has 2 speakers built into it to allow the sound effects to be targeted, and customized, and precise for each sound zone in the space.  Some 524,150 watts of power drive sound to more than 4,000 loudspeaker drivers in more than 2,000 speaker cabinets.

 But it is the effects and the drama derived there from that make KÀ so special.  There is a surreal bamboo forest with artists intertwined and climbing about.  There is an underwater scene that makes you feel like you’re in the deepest, darkest ocean.  And there are sea creatures, giant red crabs really, that dance about on a vertical sand box that will have your jaw drop.  An estimated 1,300 hours went into making the crab puppets. 

More than 100 fireballs measuring 30 feet in height are discharged in the pre-show alone, not to mention the 119 explosions of fire during the show.  There is fog bred from liquid nitrogen; and mist, which makes up a surreal curtain for the forest scene; and snow, comprised of soapsuds floated through large fans.   Add to this a mesmerizing stick bug, and a snake over 80 feet long and you begin to get the picture.  More than 110 live arrows are shot by spearmen in their quest to derail the heroes of this story about twins on an adventurous journey to fulfill their destiny.  The key word there is adventurous.

 I can’t really say I followed the journey.  But the show was definitely an adventure.

KÀ performs twice nightly Friday through Tuesday at the MGM Grand.  For more information go to www.ka.com or www.mgmgrand.com.

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