The Martians are coming!!...well, some of them anyway.

Rating: 7/10 (24 August 2005)

'War Of The Worlds' it isn't....... 'War In The Village' more like. I must have the idea of what qualifies as a world all wrong. Slaughtering a few 100 country bumpkins is not my idea of planet dominating genocide. I've seen bigger fights in the south-side of Glasgow. I realise this was a remake and all that but the original was a cheap B-movie with a limited budget. Spielberg has pot-loads of cash at his disposal. He could have shown a few countries round the world valiantly losing the battle on an epic scale. I wanted whole armies to get a pasting. I wanted a few nuclear bombs to go off without scratching the machines. Basically, I wanted a proper world war but I'm afraid half a dozen Hummers, 3 choppers and a bazooka isn't even close. Anyway, I thought the idea of keeping the tripods true to Victorian ideas of what alien transportation might be like, was pretty cool. We don't know what alien ships look like and anything other than truly ancient machines would have looked crap in 2 or 3 years time. Huffing, puffing pistons, ray-guns, scary foghorns and stained glass windows...great. I'm sure H.G. Wells would have approved. The aliens themselves were OK but the film could have done without them. I didn't have to see them to know they were dangerous. Leaving their appearance out of the movie would have left a lot more to the imagination and believe me when I say I have a pretty graphic imagination. I just wonder why aliens are always depicted as being skinny and gangly with big heads anyway. I know a few people who look like that and they always got bullied at school. The visual effects were pretty faultless. I was pretty convinced with the whole affair. I'm normally the first to pipe up when something looks crap but I was happy enough. No need to say any more on that point. The sound effects were a bit to be desired though. The foghorns were scary and they certainly gave the machines a sense of scale but there should have been more to the weaponry for instance. If they had re-used the noises from the old film for the weapons, I'd have enjoyed the ensuing mêlée even more. I also noticed some unusual breaks in the sound effects. Why did the machines, people, ray-guns etc. suddenly go quiet when the buildings and bridges were being knocked down? I thought a complete din would have been more appropriate. A 100 feet of walking metal, weapons, people dying and masonry falling down should be loud...VERY LOUD. Tom Cruise is a prat but I didn't squirm with his performance and that's a first for me. I thought he was quite good for a change. The little goggle-eyed girl (Dakota Fanning) was great. She looked scared witless throughout the whole movie. Tim Robbins was intense as usual. I don't think he ever recovered from 'Jacob's Ladder'....great. The rest of the cast were fine I reckon. I got the impression the film was cut or somehow incomplete. It wrapped itself up a little too quickly and there seemed to be a few sudden advances between scenes. Perhaps the film was chopped and changed for release to a wider and younger audience. I'd like to think there will be a Director's Cut on release next year with an hour of extra footage and a higher certificate. 'Bladerunner' is a perfect example of this editing mentality. It's a good film but it's not the Cecil B. DeMille epic I was expecting.