"War of the Worlds" visually battles your senses

Rating: 8/10 (5 July 2005)

War of the Worlds is a great roller coaster ride of a movie. Spielberg excels at this like no other director. Personally, the visual aspects of the alien Tri-pods horrify me. Every time I saw an alien Tri-pod, I simply lost my breath. Spielberg perfectly captured their mystery and horror. What imagery! And when the Tri-pods "roar," it startles me. This is the only science fiction film that has ever truly frightened me. That also means that I believe that it is the greatest alien invasion movie that I have ever seen. It is much better than Independence Day. The first hour of the film blew me away. But thats where the problem begins. The last part of the movie does not live up to its beginning and middle. In my opinion, it ended too quickly. And the aliens themselves are anti-climatic, as well. I believe that it would have worked better if we never saw the aliens at all. Another issue that I have surrounds the son of Tom Cruise's character. How did he survive that gargantuan explosion and then magically find his way to Boston? He should have been running away from the explosion, rejoining with his father and sister. The red vines are unexplained, also. Those are the only problems that I have with War of the Worlds. I'm glad that Spielberg did not blow up New York City, or any other large city for that matter, and that he stuck with the idea of filming the invasion through an ordinary man's life. Roger Ebert criticized this film because there is no explanation for why the aliens are invading. If we were invaded by aliens, the common man would be too busy running away to find out why they were invading. That quality makes this movie seem so real. It's almost like a documentary of an alien invasion. I can't wait to see it again.