By Woodrow J. Hinton

From Orson Welles to Steven Spielberg, War of the Worlds has a storied history.

Tom Cruise, clad in a worn leather jacket, faded jeans and constant smirk, does his best to save the Earth -- and director Steven Spielberg's loud and lumbering War of the Worlds. But he's unable to push the film above mediocrity.

Spielberg is the most commercially successful director ever, but he makes good and bad movies like any other filmmaker. War of the Worlds, closer in spirit and looks to H.G. Wells' short story than the 1953 sci-fi movie classic, lands somewhere in between, another gigantic action movie that self-destructs before reaching a satisfying conclusion. Compared to thrilling Spielberg monster movies like Jaws and Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds has half the scares one expects from a story about alien invaders. For a movie hyped as the event of the summer, it generates even fewer wows.

The film begins with narration from Wells' story: "... across the gulf of space, intellects vast cool and unsympathetic regarded earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us."

Regular guy longshoreman Ray Ferrier (Cruise) picks up his young daughter, Rachel (Dakota Fanning), and teenage son, Robbie (Justin Chatwin), from his separated wife (Miranda Otto) for the weekend. The setting is blue-collar Newark, N.J., just across the water from Manhattan. Ray points out a strange but beautiful sky to his daughter, but the unusual electrical storm hints at the chaos to come.

True to Orson Welles' 1938 radio play, Martian cylinders land in Jersey, and their inhabitants march toward New York City and beyond. But Spielberg's War is about a father protecting his children as much as an alien invasion adventure.

The aliens -- they're no longer identified as Martians per se -- ride skeletal tripods and pluck up the scattering humans with steel tentacles or pulverize them with heat lasers. Red alien weeds cover the land. It's a retro look, close in appearance to the original illustrations from Wells' boo but one that seems out of place with the film's contemporary setting.

The worst thing about a super-sized epic like War of the Worlds is that its story falls to pieces. There are plenty of action effects -- an exploding New Jersey highway, a capsizing Hudson River ferry, armies of soldiers and countless extras -- but without a satisfying beginning, middle and end War of the Worlds is more highlight reel than action drama.

After endless shenanigans in the public eye, Cruise might be losing it in the public relations arena, but he's more than competent in the film. In fact, it's refreshing to watch Cruise just act on-screen, playing a self-centered father disconnected from his children, one who has a chance to make things right in times of trouble.

The innocence and knack for comedy Cruise displayed long ago in the 1983 teen movie Risky Business and revisited in his best performance, Jerry Maguire, has been replaced by action stunts and melodrama. He's basically settled into playing the action hero and has the broad gestures and expressions to do it well.

If there is a flaw, it's that Cruise clearly wants you to love the heroic Ray, and his noticeable self-love prevents his performance from matching the frequent scenes of family drama with the epic action surrounding it.

In a supporting role, Tim Robbins gives plenty of bug-eyed stares as a lunatic holed up in his cellar who offers shelter to Ray and Rachel. Robbins' scenes are key to a sequence intended to make audiences sweat with suspense, but his twitchy performance is unintentional comedy.

As the wide-eyed daughter at Cruise's side, Fanning, the hardest working kid in the movies, offers redundant screams as a clichéd scared girl.

The normally impressive Otto is discarded as Cruise's ex-wife. As the rebellious Robbie, Chatwin fades under the pressure of the constant special effects.

Spielberg's past aliens were kind (Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and cuddly (E.T. ), but he knows how to build action suspense and scares. Jurassic Park and Jaws continue to frighten, no matter how dated their effects might appear, but no seat-jumping scares occur in the state-of-the-art World of the Wars.

Spielberg, the great technician, often fumbles with human emotions. It's not surprising that the film's quiet, dramatic moments between Ray and his children stumble.

Even clumsier is Spielberg and screenwriters Josh Friedman and David Koepp's halfhearted attempts to connect War of the Worlds to 9/11 fears and the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

In terms of Spielberg's recent films, War of the Worlds lands close to The Terminal as another Spielberg fumble, an average entertainment with the potential and the resources to be much better.

In comparison to other War of the Worlds-like treatments, Spielberg's movie has none of the laughs or visual pizzazz of Tim Burton's 1996 movie, Mars Attacks! It's not as unique as Jeff Wayne's 1978 double-concept Rock album, as expansive as the 1980s TV series, as matter-of-fact as the 1953 movie or as action packed as Independence Day.

Granted, Spielberg's War of the Worlds does not resort to bug-eyed monsters chasing pretty girls in tight sweaters. He gives us more, just not enough to satisfy. Grade: C-