Good movie that gets a bad rap

Rating: 8/10 (1 December 2005)

First, I think the people that are saying the original movie is better are giving it too much credit. Some have reffered to this movie as a disgrace to Wells, well the 53 movie strayed further from the book and was loaded with religious and anti-communist slants which were not in the book at all. If either is a disgrace to Wells it's the original.
With that said I liked this movie. The acting was good, the effects were great, the movie seemed more real than Independence Day (some have said ID4 had a better plot to which I laugh at), and I like how Spielberg and Koepp tried to avoid all the clichés that would have made this into another ID4.
Some people have said that this movie has no plot to which I say: Did you even watch the film? The plot is about a father that is trying to protect his children during the midst of an alien invasion, does that sound like no plot? *SPOILER* And to the people ripping on the ending: So the son lived and it was a happy ending, big deal, get over it. Doom and gloom endings get old after a while. *ENDSPOILER* Finally, the only thing that would have made the movie better would have been one or two more scenes with the Tripods and their heat rays but it's fine the way it is.
8/10