Devoted HG Wells fan but I enjoyed this one

Rating: 7/10 (4 December 2005)

Despite some inconsistencies that have obviously delighted the 'goofs' buffs I thought this was a pretty good rendering of the original story but with a 21st century setting. Far more faithful to the HG Wells classic than the 1954 Gene Barry effort (although nice to see him and Ann Robinson again in this version). The heat ray, the red weed and humanity's hopelessness were all conveyed convincingly and the ferry attack was a credible substitute for the Thunderchild sequence in the book. Nice too to see the baskets of captured humans and the Martian feeding.
If only Dakota Fanning had been zapped in the first reel I would have scored this an 8.