Overall Disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (2 July 2005)

I've been fascinated by WOTW since a child. I own the original book and have read it countless times and it is a book way ahead of its time. The images from the book captured me and never let go. The film when I saw it is exactly as I could have guessed.I'm not going to go into technical details or pull the film apart it is an overall feel of the movie to me. The opening of the film to the point when they enter the basement with Tim Robbins is superb. It catches the panic and hopelessness of society perfectly, although the film only concentrates on the invasion from the point of Tom Cruises family. You do not see anything on a global scale which disappointed me personally. When you do see the Tripods they are just spectacular. But where in the book they are a main part they are not really seen enough in the film for me, and I felt somewhat unsatisfied. I'm sorry but I felt the aliens were just laughable, they were almost cute like but the worst thing about them I thought they were remarkably similar to the aliens in independence day. Except the aliens in Independence day were truly menacing and disturbing ( the captured one ) they just did not cut it in this film. The basement part with the eye I thought copied too much from the 1953 version and was not very original. From this point in the film it felt rushed and lacked anymore imagination at all, the ending came very quickly and kept to the book exactly, and even the hand coming out of the fallen tripod again copied exactly to the 1953 film, and I thought this scene was laughable and no better than the 1953 WOTW. So to sum up its a film of two halves. Excellent first half, abysmal second. Dakota Fanning was the star of the movie and Tom cruise was even OK. Does this film do any justice to to HG Wells and his book? No it certainly doesn't. So with the other versions out too ( which I haven't seen yet, but going by other reviews ) it does not look like I'm going to see a truly excellent version of WOTW in my lifetime. How sad!