A truly chilling and frightening tale

Rating: 8/10 (30 June 2005)

Have just seen this at previews here in the UK this afternoon and have come away very unnerved - and thats from a 35 year old sci-fi fan! Ever since reading the original story and hearing Richard Burton narrate the musical version this story has - unlike any other story of alien invasion - unnerved me and I don't know why, it reads/plays in a very chilling and realistic manner. I liked the 1950's film version, it did not come over in the same way and was a fairly stock sci-fi tale from the time.
Onto the new film and I expected a fairly good alien invasion story with good effects but in setting it in the present day it would lack the menace apparent in the original story - thankfully. I was totally wrong - it's scary, chilling and has real menace, Independence Day it certainly is not. How on earth this got a 12A ticket is beyond me, it may not be very graphic - it doesn't need to be - yet it skillfully generates a real and powerful terror amongst it's cast. There's little in the way of false and all knowing heroics here, the cast act with real fear which combined with the strictly limited viewpoint we see gives a very unusual take on the alien invasion genre.
This Cruise/Spielberg version is also, surprisingly quite faithful to the original story. If this film was rushed, I can't see it on the screen.
Is it recommended? Yes, it's a superb piece of work and Cruise/Spielberg ought to be recognized for this. Yet I can't say I liked it because of how disturbing it was. Have had to watch something very lighthearted for the rest of the day.