So where's the story?

Rating: 4/10 (23 December 2005)

This looked like $200 million spent on excellent special effects and 35 cents spent on a sad screenplay by a five-year-old. A terrible waste of so much talent but indicative of what drives Hollywood. It also very much reflects the obsession of Hollywood producers with relationships between divorced parents, young children and teenagers at the expense of other genres. HG Wells wrote an enduring sci-fi story that was exciting, with a plot, structure and battles, leading to a war and its conclusion. Spielberg treated us to psychotherapy angst and a series of dramatic explosions and scenes of destruction. If Wells had written the original in such a manner, it would have been forgotten decades ago.