Not bad, but no classic

Rating: 4/10 (26 August 2006)

I was disappointed with this film for several reasons. First of all, if you haven't seen the film, don't read any more since I'm most likely spoiling it for you.
I never bought into the notion that aliens could successfully bury hundreds of tripods and have them go undetected by human kind over the course of what had to have been thousands of years. This of course did make for a spectacular entrance, seeing one burst forth, but come on! Logic flew out the window for the sake of just being spectacular. Which is something that tends to spoil man of Spielberg's films, at least for me. It's his tendency to impress using unjustified gimmicks. Remember "The Sugarland Express" where the sheriff played by Ben Johnson decides to stop a news van by shooting out its tires causing it to tumble into a ravine? Now I ask you; what officer of the law could do such a thing and get away with it? I know people distrust the media and that was the case back in 1974, but it smelled of a contrivance used to shock. There's much of this in "War of the Worlds." Too much. I'd mention more examples of it, but since there are those reading this who haven't yet seen the film and I don't want to spoil it too much for them, I'll remain quiet.
Another thing about the film that bother me were all the various mistakes. Mistakes in continuity, mistakes in the visuals, mistake after mistake after mistake. Much of the CGI is quite good, but there are times when the tripods dramatically change size. As the film progresses, they get bigger until by the end they're at least three-times as large as the first one we see. The movements of the tripods seem a bit odd as if the animators took liberties with where they touched the ground. As Tom Cruise is running away from the very first one leading up to him ducking behind a building, in the background we see the legs of the tripod moving backwards. As Cruise settles in the shot the legs begin to move forward, all the while we're hearing the mechanized beat as the machine advances. There are other scenes like this where the joining of the CG material over actual locations doesn't quite work.
Would I recommend the film? that depends on what you're looking for in entertainment. "Independence Day" was awful, but it had a sense of fun about it which made it somewhat bearable. And its visual effects were on par with "War of the Worlds" and in some ways even better. It's aliens tended to look somewhat like the aliens in Spielberg's film. I still prefer the shrimp-pink, pulsating vein-covered cyclops of Pal's version of "War of the Worlds." The classic scene where it placed its three spindly fingers on Ann Robinson's shoulder left a lasting impression with just about all who saw the film for the first time. Nothing like it in this version. The aliens are shown in a cut and dry fashion.
For me Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" lacked imagination. It's rather dark and brooding. Where George Pal's version instilled a sense of wonder as well as fright, this film only succeeds in brining out the feeling of dread mixed with a sense of futility.
I give it a 6 out of ten. I'd have given it a 7 had Tom Cruise not been in it.