Only Spielberg would end it like that!!

Rating: 8/10 (1 July 2005)

As Spielberg matures, and certainly he has earned the right to be considered one of the great commercial film directors in American film history, he has become unafraid to go dark (Minority Report, Shindler's List) In the case of War of the Worlds, very dark indeed. The film is riveting and relentless. I will disagree with a previous poster to say that tension is created very quickly and then sustained to nearly the end (and I'll get to that in a minute)and all the classic effects you come to expect for SS are there. It's a white-knuckle ride with sudden frights, impossible escapes, things getting blown to bits and really nasty aliens. Spielberg does for evil aliens what M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs" only hoped to do. It's all over-the-top and true to H.G.Wells. Any complaints, direct them to the author (who is only mostly dead); except for the ending. Against all odds, a character that had clearly been incinerated comes back for the sappiest, most disappointing ending of all time. Another poster justified the ending as actually "sad" in the sense that Tom Cruise's character is left alone after a global holocaust while his loved ones are reunited apart from him. Baloney. He'd lost almost everything and where War of the Worlds could have ended on a hard, but upbeat note, it ended on a test-marketed commercial ending that is truly a painful contrast to an otherwise brilliant thriller. Maybe American audiences just can't handle an ending that isn't neatly sewn up with a smiley face and a lovely red ribbon tied to it. But than again, what's the #1 summer box office success for 2005? War of the Worlds. Spielberg knows his audience.