Scariest Film I've Seen in Ten Years !

Rating: 9/10 (19 July 2005)

I thought War of the Worlds was truly scary because it was filmed from the viewpoint of Tom Cruise as an "Everyman." I liked the viewpoint of showing the survivors....the people....the refugees....trudging along back roads in search of a safe haven. The action did not center on the fight between the aliens and the armed forces....that was a mere backdrop to the true story: a man trying to save his family. Tom Cruise didn't act like the normal action hero, saving the world from destruction. He acted like a scared human being, running from alien invaders, and doing anything he could to save his kids. The fact that he was a dock worker and a divorced weekend dad brought the level of the fear and flight down to a level of reality that audience members can identify with. I thought this was a great film, with outstanding performances, and just the right amount of very believable special effects. Some reviewers have complained that we don't understand the aliens' motivation; however, this is totally realistic. If aliens really did attack us out of the blue, they are not going to send us nice, neat messages explaining why they are attacking us. They have an agenda. They are attacking without explanation. We fight back and run to survive. What more do you need? I was especially perturbed at Roger Ebert's review where he seemed hung up on the fact that the aliens' death machines were "tripods." He stated that two or four legs are more stable than three. Did he even notice that the aliens, themselves, are tripods, with three limbs? The tripod machines would therefor be a natural configuration for the three-limbed aliens. Ebert seemed to think that Cruise and his family simply survived one impossible situation after another, making the story unbelievable. Mr. Ebert has to recognize that every major disaster or war always has survivors, and that those survivors often have to escape multiple dangers. This is simply the story of one family of survivors, and it is told in a manner to draw the audience member breathless into the everyman viewpoint. 9 out of 10 stars (I would have given it 10 stars except for a couple of glaring science errors, such as the working digital video camera after an electro magnetic pulse that wiped out every other electrical object within a five mile radius).