Should have been called 'Massacre of Earth Cliché Fest'

Rating: 3/10 (17 April 2006)

I had high hopes for War of the Worlds, especially with such an advancement of CGI technology the potential of such a blockbuster was there. Instead the CGI became the only good thing about the film. The films suffers from everything that can go wrong in a film. Even people back in the 50's would laugh if they saw this. War of the World is perhaps the biggest collection of disaster movie clichés ever made.
The characters- The focal point of most movies and the anchor of us, (the audience) into the film's world. The characters in the film wouldn't seem to be able to pass a grade 2 math exam. All of whom seem to do their best to be as hateable as possible, Armageddon has arrived on earth and people bicker and fight among each other about such trivial matters like a cheap sit-com. We're also treated to a 10 year old girl who's presence there is merely as a screaming machine. Also after a street is torn from under their feet, and behold a giant mechanized alien device towers before everyone, suddenly brains fade out of existence to stare up at the behemoth before them dumbfounded. I mean come on, especially when the teen makes an emotional scene just to have a better view of the futile military engagement. The characters manage to make themselves so unsympathetic that you're hoping the aliens succeeds in killing them.
The plot- The plot is simple enough, aliens exterminating humanity, And we follow a certain blue collar worker's hard path of survival from the ultra-advanced alien invaders. All the while he has to show how bad of a father he is along the way with a child and a teenager deciding now was the time to be rebellious. Oh by the way the rest of the world has been destroyed. I don't know how they managed to green light that gem...
The Aliens- Ah yes, the great antagonists of the film. They are killing people on sight, Why? The film never bothers to explore that. As far as we know, it's just a zoo gone mad. Where did they come from? The film also never bothers to explore that either. They're just around, in big machines, zapping people one at a time in the most inefficient extermination methods possible. Of course they are totally invincible for the sake of making our character's plight even more hopeless. I don't know about you but it seems to me something is more scary when the odds are against us rather then when it's totally hopeless. The aliens are just there cause the movie has nothing better to do, so they'll kill off a whole species one at a time for the hell of it.
Cliché upon Cliché upon Cliché- could the film be even more predictable and clichéd? Even Roland Emmerich couldn't top the cliché list higher then this. Father just woke up, Big mechanized Alien zapping everyone. Father escapes in a car, idiot killed, Big mechanized alien zapping everyone. Father and kids make it onto a boat, Big mechanized alien zapping everyone. Military engages, energy shields deflect everything. Sudden weakness discovered, Aliens don't stand a chance anymore. Main characters survive. This list of clichés is just from the plot alone, There's a whole bunch more during the finer points of the film.
I mean there's nostalgia I understand but there's a limit to that too, A film called 'War of the Worlds' consists of 3 people running and running and running. A foe which is impossible to to defeat but all miraculously die from something you'd think with all their advanced technology would be able to counter. This makes even sci fi films from the 50's look bad.