Wow is WOW!

Rating: 9/10 (1 July 2005)

As a lifetime fan of the H.G. Wells novel and the George Hal motion picture, I can honestly say that Mr. Spielberg's adaptation of The War of the Worlds is nothing short of fantastic! This film highlights the major differences between truly legendary film makers and all the rest. Spielberg cares about story. He concentrates on theme and consistency. He makes films with a complete understanding and appreciation for the audience, not just for the sake of his own ego and for the sake of making a movie.
What a great and faithful version of the classic tale this movie is! Spielberg does a great job of moving the tale into the 21st century without all the subliminal political baggage you so often see in today's movies. What a relief to see a film that doesn't have underlying criticism of today's events or with barely hidden political agendas.
Cruise is believable as the self-indulged absentee dad who has neglected his family. As a father myself, I saw true-to-life interaction between Cruise's character and his troublesome teenage son. It was subtle, it was natural, and most importantly it was real. So is his relationship between his character and Dakota Fanning, who should get an Oscar for her performance in this film. She is so absolutely vulnerable and plays her character with such flair and depth that it would be a shame if she wasn't at least nominated for an Academy Award.
The story itself is very solid and believable. Sure there's an unexplained hole or two (like where do the aliens come from?), but they are relatively insignificant, because the whole purpose of the tale is to completely undermine your sense of complacency and the total confidence in your superiority in the world. The lesson is that at any time, any thing can happen to bring you down. There are 9-11 type images in the film, but don't think it's intentional. If anything, 9-11 brings home the reality of the theme of the movie and serves as a real-world example (albeit on a smaller scale) of what happens in this story. The original novel tells of a man who witnesses the ravages of the ultimate war, and this movie stays with that plot faithfully.
The quality of the film making is outstanding. Spielberg does not dwell on special effects, nor does he depend on them to propel the story like some other lesser film makers do (take a hint George Lucas). You aren't barraged with images of tripod after tripod after tripod  in this movie, you are given a ground-level, personal experience point of view (the tripods in the background, buildings exploding around you, people right next to you evaporated by heat beams). Spielberg focuses on the personal, not the grandiose, and it brings the movie home in a very real way. As a young child I often had horrifying dreams of large monsters or robots chasing me, hunting me down. I couldn't escape them, they were always on my heels. WoW brought back those fears in a big way, and I felt a real sense of dread every time those tripods made an appearance. Speaking of which, the first appearance of the first tripod is a masterpiece of modern cinema. No music to over-dramatize things, you are left to just experience the awe and wonder as if you were on the scene standing right in the crowd.
The aliens themselves weren't that forbidding, but I wasn't expecting much there anyway. Again, the story is not really about them, but about the human experience.
Tim Robbins plays a character in the movie that is actually amalgamated from two different characters in the novel  the groveling priest and the lazy dreaming soldier. In one of the most powerful scenes in the film, Cruise must deal with this dangerous person who threatens to bring the aliens down on them all while they hide out in an abandoned house. Spielberg does this with power and infinite grace, choosing to let the action play out behind a closed door with Dakota Fanning singing a lullaby to herself in the next room.
All in all this was a thoroughly enjoyable motion picture. It's so refreshing to see a classic brought to the screen with such grace and attention to detail as this movie. My hat is off to Spielberg once again for making movies so much fun to not only watch but experience as well.