Despite a few really terrifying moments of cinema, this is a really bad movie.

Rating: Null/10 (22 November 2005)

Despite a few really terrifying moments of cinema, this is a really bad movie. Why can't anyone do H. G. Wells right? Well, in the original 1950's movie "War of the Worlds" George Pal tried, but even they cut corners (they used "rays" instead of tripod legs for the Martian machines.) The best of H. G. Wells to cinema is still "The Invisible Man", "First Men on the Moon" and "Things to Come".
Now to dissect Steven Spielberg's nightmare of what I consider to be the worst modern SCIFI movie ever made. Steven, listen to me, you can't expect a movie to be about toasting humans elegantly as if somehow to evoke the emotions of the holocaust, then have a ten year old little cute white blond girl watch in big blue eyed scream in horror sans Dakota Fanning, and constantly put her in jeopardy: To the cheap reaction of the audience and expect that to be cinema.
And you can't use Tom Cruise's mugging or tired toothy grin to pull you out of a bad script. And please, Steven, don't pull another typical Father and Son conflict out of your old magic hat to evoke drama. That crap just does not work anymore. It is hard to believe that the same man that directed "Jaws", "E.T. The Extraterrestrial", and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" put together, let alone signed his name to such tripe.
Finally and most shamelessly, Steven, you have evoked the paranoia of a real event, that of 9/11 in your film with constant reference to "are they terrorists?" And then to use the jingoistic display of the American flag? That is just pathetic, and Steven, you should be ashamed for exploiting these images for your profit and gain. Shame on YOU!
Finally, Steven, where the heck was the plot? No where to be found. Big bad alien machines crusted up from under the streets and toasting everybody and expecting Tom Cruise's horror at the crust on his face eliciting some sort of compassion? Fantastic movie imagery was all you were after but even those images were few and far between. But who were these machines? Where did they come from? What was their agenda? How did they die? Intelligence is sorely lacking in this film. Sad in a way because Steven, you quote H. G. Wells' novel in the opening stanza. Again . . . shame on YOU!
The original Victorian story of "The War of the Worlds" was one of genuine and unique paranoia for the times. This novel (you must read it - classic stuff) has has yet to be done on film properly. In order to do the film correctly, the movie has to embody the time. It is entirely plausible during the turn of the 20th century that Mars might be a harbinger of intelligent life, given the canals of Lovell, and that Martian war machines could compete with that era's military might - but today it just does not seem credible. Oh well. I am so tired of bad movies.