The chances of anyone making a decent War of the Worlds film are a million to one.

Rating: 2/10 (5 March 2013)

The first movie adaptation of H.G. Wells' War of the World's was produced in the 50s by George Pal and featured flying saucers attacking modern-day America rather than tripods laying waste to Victorian Britain (as was depicted in the book). Pal can easily be forgiven, since there was neither the budget nor the technology available to remain absolutely true to Wells' incredible tale.
Steven Spielberg has no such excuse.
With a massive budget, A-list stars, the power to call the shots, and the best special effects houses at his disposal, he could have given us the definitive cinematic version of Wells' classic tale; instead, we get this pile of unmitigated cack, another contemporary tale set in the US with a typically Spielbergian dysfunctional family at its heart and plot holes big enough to walk an army of tripods through.
From the dumb premise of Martians using aeons-old war machines buried under the Earth's surface, to the supposedly advanced alien probe that can be fooled by a mirror, to the happy family reunion at the end, this is badly scripted, ill-judged film-making from a director who really should know better.
Possibly Spielberg's worst movie to date, War of the Worlds gets 2/10 from me.