Nowhere near as good as "iD4"!!! Not even close!

Rating: 4/10 (20 August 2005)

"War of the Worlds"...
I went because I was only interested to see what Spielberg and Koepp had accomplished, since they lead one of my fave movies of all time, "Jurassic Park".
Sadly, I was nowhere near impressed. True, I was mostly on the edge of my seat for the first half of the movie, but it was more so waiting for something brilliant to happen. I understand what they tried to do- showing the attack on earth sorely thru one family's eyes, while sticking to the book's end exactly; but, it just somehow still felt like a letdown. I don't know why...
Maybe it's because another one of my fave movies is "iD4" (1996), (and not because of the aliens). "iD4" had everything- drama, comedy, and yes, action/adventure, etc. It not only showed you one point of view, but everyone's- and showed them all working together to find a way to fight back. And you could identify with and sympathize for each and every character at least once throughout that brilliant movie.
In "War of the Worlds", we start out with hardly any backstory, so we don't really know who to root for (Why exactly is the father divorced from the mom? What did he do to make her feel that way about him? Should we feel bad for him? etc), we're just thrown into it and forced to watch and wait for the answers, while they try to run from the strange attacks happening around them (via typical special effects- which, btw the one CGi moment I liked in the whole movie? The cars falling off the ferry into the water... particularly the one you see in the trailers!).
Above all tho, we want that happy ending. Well, at least I do. Someone had said this movie had a terribly depressing ending, so I was worried going into it, but after seeing it, I've sadly seen way worse. The defeat of the aliens was odd but predictable (if you know the book's story), which was annoying in itself. But thankfully, the entire main character family survives. And that is the only thing that made me not hate the movie, heh- because if they hadn't, well, it's already not something I'd watch again, but yea. It's a good movie, sure- in its own way, whatever way that is.
I also agree with some other reviews here, which comes down to, maybe this tried to be too realistic? (with the one PoV thing) Oh, and of course, there were some errors here & there (the electric stopping in everything including cars, watches- yet cameras still worked! LoL) and unbelievableness (just how did the mom's house escape untouched?? isn't Boston always one of the target cities in these kind of attacks?) etc. And no emotional development. (So.. what happens at the end? Does the guy go back to his home near the river? The children continue living with their mom, step-dad, etc- how do their feelings ever change to their father?) The girl must have one heck of an essay if she ever goes back to school.. ("These aliens chased me, my dad, my brother from NYC to Boston, and at one point my brother ran away from us, and later my dad hurt someone to protect me." Eek!) Not entirely mocking it, but- it could have been done better.
I'd give it 2/5 stars, or 4/10. Again, nowhere near as good as "Independence Day"- not even close!! I've watched "iD4" at least 50x and I don't think I'll ever watch this one again, oh well.
Spielberg, Koepp, please tell me you've got something better in store for "JP4"!! I mean, "JP1&2" were brilliant, but "JP3" was just disappointing!
-SimbiAni