A confused retelling of a great story

Rating: 5/10 (14 February 2006)

Filmmakers have tried to tell this story before, with limited success, and it has also been brought to musical life by Jeff Wayne's iconic musical of the 1970s. This film rates well compared to the other celluloid efforts, but it pales next to the original book and the album.
Spielberg's turgid, sloppy interpretation attempts to gain impact by associating the story more closely with the familiar world of the viewer, but lacking either the vision of the book or the grandeur and unsettling tones of the musical it falls well short of either of them.
I'd rate it as the third best of the various WOTW incarnations, slipping in ahead of the other two films (which are awful). Spielberg tries to spin the story into one of human interest, stripping it of any of it's social commentary on the nature of war and imperialism, something which could have had real resonance coming from an American filmmaker in 2005, and the result is that what we end up with is not really War of the Worlds. Instead we get a hammed-up family hug time intercut with big-budget special effects.
Basically, this story is one that could have considerable impact on the big screen, but Spielberg wussed out and gave us "WOTW lite". Notable was the absence of any US servicemen being killed or injured on screen, which was apparently a conscious decision. HG Wells wrote about a war, and a brutal one at that, in which mankind is ruthlessly slaughtered and subjugated. He wrote it to shock the ruling military power at the time, the British Empire. The sense of catastrophe and helplessness was palpable, and would have been shocking to an audience used to winning wars, as it could have been in this case. Spielberg's tripods are very cool, and moderately menacing but the aliens themselves, although they appear, serve no actual role in the story other than an excuse to squeeze in another couple of effects shots. Yawn. Again, themes and substance lose out to eye-candy, as if the two have to be mutually exclusive.
Overall, fairly disappointing. Do yourselves a favour and read the book. It's short, and maybe someone one day will finally makes a WOTW movie that lives up to it.