It's 107 years since H G Wells published his sci fi chiller The War of the Worlds, since which time it's never been out of print and has spawned a legendary radio play broadcast, Byron Haskin's classic 1953 film adaptation (still one of the genre's all time greats), a TV series sequel and (taking the setting back to London) a multi-million selling album by Jeff Wayne featuring David Essex and Anthony Hopkins that's currently riding high in the charts following its remix reissue.

They're all hard acts to follow, but if anyone's going to keep up the batting average then the dream team 'creative combustion' pairing of Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise would seem to be a safe bet.

Fresh from their first collaboration on Minority Report in 2002, Cruise recalls discussing possible future projects with Spielberg while he was filming Catch Me If You Can. Spielberg mentioned three movies, one of which was a new take on War of the Worlds. The spark was lit.

For Cruise, who first encountered the story when he heard about the panic Orson Welles's 1938 broadcast caused across America when it was assumed to be actually happening, it remains as relevant now as it did back in 1898.

"In 1938 it was to the backdrop of the Nazis invading Poland, the threat of war," he offers.

"Then in the 1950s it was the Cold War. Great science fiction is still relevant. It's dealing with universal themes. Man has always been fighting man; killing for territory, for beliefs, for not believing. But man really doesn't recognise the common enemy.

"Whether it's drug addiction, illiteracy, criminality, or immorality. Those things that are rotting our societies at the core. That's what we all have in common. And that's what H.G Wells did with his book. He looked at what happens when man recognises a common enemy. Great science fiction does have relevance, political relevance."

Inevitably, given the technical advances and the shifts in political climates since the last screen outing, Spielberg's version, scripted by David Koepp (who also wrote Mission Impossible, Jurassic Park and Spider-Man), is a rather loose adaptation that contains elements from the book but resonates with events in and the mood of America since 9/11 and the Iraq war.

This time round it's told through the eyes of a fractured New Jersey family headed by Ray Ferrier, separated from his wife and not the best of husbands or parents. Reluctantly landed looking after his two children, Rachel and Robbie, when his ex wife goes away for the weekend, the world quite literally explodes around them and unleashes a desire to protect his family and depths of courage he never knew existed.

An intimate story about family that just happens to have an alien invasion of Earth as its backdrop, the character of the 'deadbeat dad' was very much down to the 42 year old star's own input and concerns regarding his own kids, Isabella, 12, and ten year old Conor.

"I wanted to play a father and make the picture about a personal journey of a parent with his children and what that journey would be like if that weekend the world is coming to an end or the world is suddenly at war," he expands, enthusiasm for the project undampened by the recent water pistol incident.

"This man is ill equipped, irresponsible, and a bigger child than his kids; so how is he gonna cope with this? It's that challenge for a guy who has really only thought about himself and now he must become a parent and protect his kids. Will he keep them alive?

"That's an interesting story to me. And those are the things Steven and I really talked about.

"I wanted to make it a film that I could dedicate to my children, which is about how much I love my children and how far you're going to go to protect them."

Of course, looking back at the likes of E.T, Close Encounters, Hook, Jurassic Park, Artificial Intelligence and even Catch Me If You Can, parent/child stories aren't exactly new territory to Spielberg but as ever it's the personal, human element that keeps the heart beating behind the spectacular special effects and action.

"You get to understand that the whole world is under attack but it's all from the point of view of Ray Ferrier," Cruise agrees. "Steven does that with his movies and it brings you right into those characters and their stories and you really care what they are going through.

"Look at Close Encounters for instance. That's about a guy who goes insane. He leaves his family and you think he is going insane but really he's the sane one because ultimately this is what is happening to him and it's outside other people's reality. But you go with it, somehow you are right there with this character. I love how Steven looks into families, men and women, and how that reveals itself in his stories."

Although he's a veteran of two Mission Impossibles, The Last Samurai, Top Gun and Far and Away, none of which you could call small films, in terms of sheer scale this is the biggest film Cruise has ever been a part of.

"It's just huge," he laughs. "and it has everything I want to see in a Spielberg movie. I remember going to see Jaws. We were going on a picnic but I convinced my family that we should see Jaws and we waited in line for hours because it was sold out. And when I saw it there were moments when I jumped out into the aisle! I literally went over about five people and I was standing in the aisle. And I want that in a Spielberg film, I want that in a movie."

But at the end of the day, Cruise hopes the audience will take away more than just thrills and spills from War of the Worlds.

"I hate to tell people what I want them to feel, but it would be nice if they walked out and wanted to hug their children or maybe they want to take time with their family a little more. Also, when I was making it I really thought about what are the common enemies of mankind instead of man on man.

"So somewhere there is that thought of us wanting to unite together, to battle those common enemies. And of course we want to scare the audience, give them a great ride and wow them, This is a really scary, intense film. But it's also emotional. It's an emotional epic."

* War of the Worlds opens tomorrow