Despite all the negative reviews.

Rating: 8/10 (21 July 2005)

First of all, I have seen the trailer of this movie, which did not give me any negative or positive prejudices about the movie. Making an interesting movie and an interesting trailer are two completely different things. Like catching fish with a net and shooting insects with a shotgun. All I knew about the movie, seeing the trailer is that the world is in despair, everyone is panicked.
I walked into the cinema and sat down watching the movie. The introductory narration did not ignite much interest in me, I think the text of the narrator was not told in an interesting way. Okay, I have reached the point when I have to mention that I did not see the original English version, but the dubbed Hungarian one, so whatever I am going to say about dialogues could be the fault of the translation.
Starting to watch the film, I realized the movie takes after the novel called White Mountains. I read that book in an overly simplified version, so I was unsure how similar the movie will be to that novel. I knew what the Tripods are and I knew the solution how they can be destroyed. I was just hoping the will be another solution... or the film will have a bad ending, which I would have preferred. There were differences between the novel and the movie, that is for sure. The film is much more depressing and darker.
I found some dialogues and scenes humorous, especially before the alien's arrival. Mainly when Cruiser throws out the window with the baseball ball. I not only smiled like I did with other jokes: I started launching silently. Then the film turned sinister. The bad guys emerged and the mindless escaping began. It is only my opinion, that the sounds the Tripods made were too noisy. The fact that I found them noisy is perhaps I am not used to loudness so much. I did not give any bad marks for this, I just wanted it worth noting.
So, panic. I noticed only one mistake in the film: When the EMP shock-wave deactivated all electronics, I still saw people taking photos about the Tripods. I don't think any believable explanation can be given why only the cameras worked. It probably has something to do with advertising annihilation. :D
I found the feeling to be scary, to use some informal English slang. The scene when the alien scout 'snake' enfiladed the basement was okay, but when the Aliens arrived... it scared me. I don't remember any movies that made me fear while watching. I was hoping to do this by AvP when I watched that movie, but was not expecting that exactly this film will scare me.
As for the finale, I did not like that either. It may be because I am malicious that I wanted Robee(spellng?) to die, so when he appeared in Boston made me a little disappointed. The explanation in the end was not clear enough, it did tell what caused the doom of the invaders but it did not clarify how, which I think is more important or almost as important.
In overall, the movie was good enough. If you have noticed I did not say much good about the movie, this is my style of writing a review. I don't usually mention things I liked unless they are extraordinary. I am not sure whether I will watch it again, on VHS on DVD at best, I assume I will. This movie will not gain any special awards, it only showed to me, that Spielberg is not esteemed for nothing. I respect his achievements, even though I saw only a couple of his films.
I rate it 8 out of 10. If it were not for the sudden ending and the unclear explanation, it would be 9 out of 10.