Big-screen movie with a small-screen look

Rating: 7/10 (1 July 2005)

This would have been an above-average effort if it had been a made-for-TV movie, but it was not impressive as a big-screen spectacle. Everything in it looked small, as if it had been made with a limited budget on a tight schedule. The tripods looked neat enough, but they were obviously state-of-the-art CGI in most scenes. In several big, important scenes the film-makers must have been influenced by Greek tragedy, because actions that would be spectacular (and the kinds of things that audiences pay to see) are left to occur off-stage. Crowd scenes, city scenes and battle scenes were all creditably done, but there just wasn't anything that said "epic" about them. Don't dismiss this film out of hand, however. There are scenes that I'll remember forever for their eerie beauty, and one that was so jarringly out-of-character that I can't stop thinking about it, but to describe them would necessitate using the "spoiler" tag. See the movie, just don't expect to be blown away (or see things blown away, for that matter!).