Not A Dull Moment... Well, Not Many.

Rating: 8/10 (2 July 2005)

War Of The Worlds was far better than I thought it would be. Knowing nothing about WOTW other than what I have seen in the trailer, I have to say that I thought this was a damn good movie. No wonder I didn't know what to expect, the film makers deliberately made sure not to show anything, other than the main actors looking horrified (which Dakota Fanning does an excellent job of).
The story is very basic. It seems Aliens had been planning ahead for millions of years to take over this planet (why they didn't just come here before we were around I'm not sure). They planted these, for lack of a better term, weapons of mass destruction, under the surface of the planet. Years later, in the year 2005 to be exact, the aliens boarded the WMDs via an electrical storm which they created. We figure this out by a tape of news woman's slow motion of the lightning bolt hitting the ground twenty something times. Shortly after, the ground literally explodes and up come these huge machines, which look like a cross between something in Star Wars and Doc Ock from Spider-Man. Man is faced with this dilemma of how to rid the planet of these pests. Technically, as the movie stated, it is the other way around. They are trying to get rid of us. "This is a war to them the way man is at war with maggots" or something along those lines.
The actors were very convincing, in particular, Fanning, who plays the daughter of Tom Cruise's character, Ray. Cruise also does a great job. Many people in this role would tend to overact but I believe Tom does a good job of not doing that. Cruise and Fanning were the main stars, other than the special effects. They made a good team. I expect to see some great things come from Dakota when she is an adult.
Although I'm not sure why this movie is getting trashed by so many people, I don't care either. This was a great movie... much better than others in this genre which we have been given lately. I suspect many trash it because of Tom's "coming out of the closet" so to speak with his Scientology. This is a lame excuse to trash a perfectly good movie, which, although I never read the book, I hear it's very true to it. If this is the case, then all the book lovers should not have many complaints. This movie comes highly recommended by me.