War of the Worlds is amazing at times, yet slightly flawed at other times.

Rating: 8/10 (2 July 2005)

(Review contains no spoilers)
War of the Worlds is based on the 19th century novel of the same name. Back in the late 1800s, The War of the Worlds novel was considered by many to be a groundbreaking story of when aliens invaded Earth. H.G. Wells was the first person to publish a book about an alien invasion and the story seemed to put an ominous fear in our minds. Ever since then people have been fascinated by the thought of aliens coming to Earth; whether they may be benign in nature, as shown in 1982's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, or menacing and bent on destruction of the human race, as shown in countless other films like 1996's Independence Day. But The War of the Worlds was always the one that started it all. In 1938, radio announcer Orson Welles spread panic through the nation when he read on the air a special version of the original novel. He presented it in such a realistic and believable manner that everyone who listened to only part of the broadcast was fooled and thought that the Earth was actually being invaded by Martians. As you might imagine, people went running rampantly through the streets. And then in 1953, the first film based on the original novel was made; it was simply titled The War of the Worlds.
And now, in the year 2005, another film is being made based upon the original novel. This time it is set in modern times and is meant to be a very realistic story on an extremely personal level. The film succeeds on many levels, but may also leave you wanting more or wishing they would have just fixed this one thing in other areas.
The film has some pretty awe-inspiring moments in it, but these moments are bogged down by mistakes that could have been easily corrected with some more production time. The film started filming 7 months ago, and it is quite apparent in many parts of the movie. For example, the design of the aliens is especially uninspired and lacks originality. Despite looking very cool, the same can be said about the tripods. It would have been nice to see more original material in the movie, rather than just reusing the same artwork designs that were in previous alien invasion stories. Although goofs almost never bother me, there is one very apparent mistake in the movie that was surprisingly overlooked by the crew. There are also little things throughout the movie that aren't necessarily goofs, but to put them any other way might be stretching it a little too much. The people that Ray meets along the way also seemed overly informed and things like that detract significantly from the experience.
The acting in the movie is actually very well done. Tom Cruise fits the part of Ray surprisingly well. All the other roles in the film are all done very nicely as well. Some might feel that Dakota Fanning overdoes the screaming when playing Rachel, but I thought it helped with the feeling of realism. There are other touches in the film that try to make it feel more realistic; with one of the more noticeable ones being the feeling of a hand-held camera in some of the earlier scenes. This works so well in making the movie feel like a documentary that it would have been nice to have seen this used more throughout the film; primarily toward the end. There is also impressive use of extras in the film.
There is a scene somewhat near the end of the film that takes place in the basement of an old house. The beginning of the scene is handled quite well. But after a while, you kind of get tired of the setting. It would have been nice to change the scene a little bit sooner, as it soon felt repetitive. There is also a hiding scene that takes place in the basement that could have been handled better; as it wasn't that scary. There was a scene similar to this that took place in Jurassic Park when people were hiding from the dinosaurs and they were hunting them down, and the scene seemed to be done much better in that movie; as there is very little tension here. Another one of the film's flaws was that its back-story didn't seem as fully fleshed-out as it could have been. The invasion itself seemed rather rushed and certainly could have been more interesting. Some moments of the film were very quick and intense, while others were more breathers than anything else. But when they let the audience breathe, the momentum the film had going was lost and wasn't able to fully bring it back. But what is even more irritating is the ending. The last 10-15 minutes of the film seemed highly unfocused and will likely leave a bad taste in many peoples' mouths. Although the ending stuck very closely to the source material, it wasn't actually that good. The ending was by far the worst part of the film, largely because it came up too abruptly and even felt rushed.
Despite these numerous complaints, someone would be mistaken to think that I didn't like the film; because I actually thought it was very good. The special effects are some of the best, if not the best, I have ever seen. Like I mentioned earlier, the acting was top-notch. The first two-thirds of the film are truly amazing. It is extremely unfortunate that the last part of the film didn't keep the momentum and excitement of the first parts. However, the film is still very impressive and I highly recommend it to nearly anyone.
SCORE: 8 out of 10; great.
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins, and Justin Chatwin