Good, but deserves to be a better film.

Rating: Null/10 (27 May 2007)

I'll be honest - I couldn't wait for War Of The Worlds to come out. I was always a fan of the original book by H.G Wells, mainly for its sheer imagination and scope for a book that was scribed in late 19th Century England. Now to finally see it in its full glory was something I eagerly anticipated. And the fact that Spielberg was directing was just a nice sweetener (although this would have been a great project for James Cameron).
So did the film deliver? Yes and no. One would expect from Spielberg a focus on character more then anything else, and this is exactly what War of the Worlds does. It primarily focuses on one man, and his ability to deal with the situation that is unfolding before him. We, the audience go along for the ride, and see the events from a very close and personal perspective. Anyone looking for an Independence Day type film is ultimately going to be disappointed, because this is not that kind of film.
Apart from the Alien Invaders, what makes this film so frightening is that we see it from a point of view that this could happen anytime tomorrow or the next day. Spielberg injects a healthy dose of realism into the film that makes it really believable. Mankind going about his daily business without even knowing or slightly aware that another race of beings has been watching us evolve and has been studying us, and ultimately wants our planet, and sometime TODAY they plan to launch their worldwide invasion.
What about the aliens? Who are they? And where do they come from? In the original book, we know quite early on that they are from Mars, and have planned an Earth invasion because of the unlivable conditions on Mars. What's great about this is that Wells even talked about the moral and philosophical aspects of an alien invasion.
Spielberg symbolically hints that the invaders might be from Mars, but you never actually know where they are from. Unfortunately there are also some major gaps and plot holes regarding the invasion, and it would have been nice to have been told some more detail about our new alien friends. Various points are briefly mentioned about their technology and their method of attack, but once you start thinking about it, it actually raises more questions. And you quickly realize that Spielberg decided to leave out, what could have been some very satisfying points to the overall plot. I won't mention any spoilers here, but you will eventually figure out what I'm referencing to. Of course once you start to think about these plot holes you must also remember that Spielberg was really trying to make a human story here, not an alien one. The attack on earth and the Tripod machines are simply a backdrop to the story.
What about those Tripods? Do we get to see what the aliens look like? The answer is a resounding yes! In fact the aliens don't look CGI at all, which is a nice relief, even though they are totally CGI, and it's clear that their technology and weapons reflects their evolution as a species. This is one area that Spielberg (with the help of visual effects juggernaut ILM) really excels.
The Tripods are menacing and otherworldly, yet it's clearly shown that they're machines, and wait till you see what comes out of these machines. Occasionally you can catch glimpses of what appears to be alien glyphs engraved on the side of the tripods, symbolizing a registration mark of some kind or maybe a trademark? It's little details like this that make Spielberg such a master filmmaker, his attention to detail.
You've probably heard by now in other reviews or from family and friends about people's dissatisfaction with the ending? Well, without giving too much away, it does explain what happens from a narrative point of view. So to the average moviegoer looking for a good popcorn flick, they'll walk away with a brief but clear understanding of how they aliens fail. Yet to people who know the story, it appears Spielberg rushed the ending, with a very generalized description of what happened.
Either Spielberg was trying to crunch this down into a 2-hour movie or he ran out of money. Neither are probably the answers, as the special effects alone would have cost more than the national debt, but at times you feel like it was rushed. If War of the Worlds was much more grander and epic than this really could have been one of the greatest Science Fiction movies ever made, but as it stands it's just a very good movie, and nothing much more than that. Unfortunately the ending is also were the typical Spielberg cheese starts to slip in, although It's not enough to totally offend, but it can make you cringe at times.
Keep in mind these are really all trivial points I've highlighted as no movie is perfect, and it's always going to happen when you've got such a loved and revered topic such as this. It happened with Star Wars, and War of the Worlds is really no different. There's always going to be fans that don't appreciate what Spielberg was trying to convey. At the end of the day, these will not take anything away from the movie.
War of the Worlds is still a lot of fun, visually stunning and a truly frightening tale delivered to us by one of the greatest film makers of our time...it just could have been a lot better.