Very Good adaptation of the original source materials

Rating: 9/10 (4 July 2005)

I have been very skeptical for some time about the ability of Spielberg to pull of the remake of the WOTW. I grew up in England where the original book was mandatory reading for English lit classes, besides that, I was an avid lover of Jeff Waynes musical version..and a disappointed watcher of the 1950's Hollywood flick .
Just reading the criticism's so far leads me to believe the viewers have never read the book and most only have passing notions of the insights into the Book... Spielberg cleverly weaves his way through the magical story of the Worlds first invasion story, masterfully recreating Horshall common of the Victorian England era into New Jersey residential situ of the 21st century. The tripods true to form could almost have been drawn up in the mind of HG Wells himself, with their giant Hissing Fire weapons and baskets of human trophy's. Cleverly Spielberg keeps the Alien invader 'shields' intact aka 1950's movie in lieu of having moved the episode from the 1890's to 2005, see what Cruise can do with a few Grenades and figure what could be done with a Stealth fighter bomber without shields. He maintains the view of impending doom and savage extinction of mankind very boldly and very eerily, we have become the hunted. I could almost hear watching the movie Richard Burton narrate 'It was like watching the beginning of the route of the extermination of mankind..'
A few little items peeved me though, and being English and the movie not being set in England, funny enough was not one of them ! But the idea of the lightening bolts sending the 'pilots' into the ships, was somewhat absurd..I kept thinking half the movie, surely in all this time the Aliens craft would have been discovered with things like building codes, road development, water pipes, London being bombed during the war, etc etc... The idea of the original Martian pods landing and the aliens building their machines in the impact crater, as Wells originally wrote, was how it should have been..and that brings me to peeve number 2..
This movie was earth vs the Martians..thats how it was, and should have remained, Steven Spielburg, man, don't you get it ! we understand its a movie, we would not have chastised you for using the word martian, or complained that we know Mars is Lifeless, its a movie dude.. Not once, was the word martian used in the whole movie, and that was kind of funky as this was THE STORY, where the word Martian emanated.
Couple of things I loved, the Film perspective, it was like saving Private Ryan, slower shutter speed action cam in your face style..great shooting, and yes I loved the tripods evil buggers they were, finally I loved the perspective of the family Ferrier, and that is how it was written. Wells did not go for the whole Government vs Aliens shoot em up scenario,aka Independence Day, it was based on one man avoiding and evading the aliens, Cruise holding his sons foot begging him not to go, whilst having the choice of seeing his daughter whisked away forever made a lump come to my throat, especially as I am a father of a boy and a girl, I could easily put myself into his situation of just trying to give them one more day of life.
Spielburg could have done far more with this movie, but then it would not have been War of the Worlds, it might have been revenge of ET ! but Spielberg kept remarkably to the spirit of the book and thats what I don't get from the detractors of the movie.
What i did not like, the movie is typical of Hollywood timing, guys I can last more than 1hr 50 minutes, an additional 30 minutes would not have stretched the movie out.. Not enough destruction of the major City, London was wiped out in the book, please, I could have watched NY City being razed to the ground, without whimpering about 9/11, its only a movie for goodness sake. The ending was abrupt and true to the book, it sucked. Thats it, we are getting our bums kicked all over the World, no chance of survival, totally exterminated and then thats all folks, we win. The end. Lets all thank God, just as HG Wells did. I did not like it in the book, I hated it in the movie. Spielburg chooses to keep to the spirit of the book where it was important, but digressed where he needed it, and I thought a movie should have an explosive ending not a whimper, Steven one Fighting machine getting a rocket up its ass was not exciting, you could have at least had a better David and Goliath feel good victory for the poor bloody humans watching the movie..
That all said, Well bloody done, I have asked why nobody tackled this movie before as a modern project,especially as its the First Invasion story ever ! Its the daddy of em all !
I am glad Spielberg did it proud.