Good movie, but you need to know your history

Rating: 8/10 (29 November 2005)

This is my first comment, so please take it easy on me. Anyway, I just finished watching the DVD and listening to the Radio broadcast of War of the Worlds, from mecurythearter.info. In order to appreciate the movie more you have to have either read one of the novels or listen to the radio broadcast of it, then you'll understand what Spielberg was going for.
The movie is more or less about a single man named Ray. His ex-wife drops off his kids to watch for the weekend. Now many people didn't like the whole, family sub-plot. But it was put in there for a reason. Anyway, the movie is well made, it has mistakes, but those people just want to ruin the movie for everyone. When you're watching the movie you have to look past it, don't think of it as an alien movie, think of it as a survival movie, okay, maybe they go hand in hand, but try and you might see what I'm talking about.
*WARING ENDING WILL BE DESCRIBED, AND POSSIBLE SPOILERS*
The only gripe I have with the movie is that the ending just happens. Ray finally reaches Boston and he sees that Robbie is safe with his mother, stepfather, and grandparents. Then the camera pulls back and shows the destruction and the narrator, Morgan Freeman, talks about how the bacteria kills all of the aliens. Now many of you will say "What?! Germs killed the aliens, that's bull!!" But you have to think about it. The "tripods", the aliens attack vehicles, were buried under the Earth millions of years ago, and it's safe to assume they were buried pretty far down to avoid detection, back then there probably weren't any bacteria deadly to the aliens at the time and they thought there wouldn't be any new germs on the planet.
*END OF SPOILERS*
So other than that I enjoyed the movie, and I recommend you see it at least once.