Enjoyable for what it is.

Rating: 8/10 (24 August 2007)

Clearly the reviews here have a tendency to lean very far one way or another with less middle ground.
People who find fault with many obvious holes in the story are correct. But it is worth considering that many of those holes were given by the author of the story, Wells himself. Not the least of which was that this war of the worlds seems to have been fought and lost in one nation alone. A limited perspective from a man living in a nation that at the time was not unlike America that could see only its own significance in the world and little else.
But Spielberg did introduce a few of his own. I myself had trouble getting past how Ray had rapidly, and remarkably, concluded that the pilots had come down in the lightning strikes into vehicles that must have been buried there. Concluded within minutes of the initial attack. Quite a good guess. No need to have been so awed when the woman reporter showed him a slow motion film confirming this.
But I don't see any reason to nit pick the all facts. Any movie can be picked apart on facts and I just don't see the point of it. It's science fiction for crying out loud. How the heck to you do something so intentionally surreal with out contradicting reality? Wells wrote a story that was intended to impress on us these peoples feelings of fear, dread, helplessness and hopelessness. I remember reading it as a kid and really getting all of these message in Wells words. And the story allows us to understand that feeling of total despair only to find that a something totally unexpected and so seemingly small and insignificant can turn it all around.
The movie in the 1950s was enjoyable and impressive. But it did not convey, so convincingly, Well's intended impressions as Spielberg's flick did. From the time that machine came out of the ground until the very end I was completely awe struck with those feelings. I still am, every time I watch it. Every time that thing comes out of the ground I think "Holy s#!t!" Every time I hear that sound I think that if I were there my thoughts could only be completely filled with only dread.
Good job Steve. And I love how he did make the machines more like Well's tripods too!.
Spielberg hit it right on the nail the was he always does.