Flaws Galore, but a Visceral Experience with Great Suspense

Rating: 6/10 (24 August 2009)

Even though "War of the Worlds" isn't a great film, after the first thirty minutes, the film is so damn tense and suspenseful I can't help but give this a solid recommendation even though it has quite a bit of flaws. The images and CGI are simply incredible and as good as special effects film-making can get. "War of the Worlds" really is nothing more than a purely survival narrative with little character development, which isn't too much of problem for me given the setting and everything that's going on. The ending was meh... a little pretentious and quite abrupt, but some of the scenes work so well, especially the scenes where Cruise and Fanning are stuck in the basement and the aliens are probing the area and there's this very long, prolonged search of the area, which takes this film to an extremely high level of film-making. It had me on the edge of my seat. The last ten minutes of the film is excessively rushed and quite bad, especially in comparison to previous hour and half, which is near perfection. The family waiting at the steps? They looked like they just had their morning tea and facial. Not a scratch or misplaced hair on their head. Just perms and smiles. I did recognize a bunch of head scratchers... like video cameras working, but nothing else, not even a wrist watch... people stopping and starring when something completely monstrous is coming out of the ground and ripping up the road underneath them, and a slew of others I wont mention so I don't ruin my own experience thinking about all the problematic areas of the film instead avoiding all the great aspects.
The one glaring problem I have with it is the fact that everyone you think is going to live does. It tries to be too much of a crowd pleaser instead of the dark attack on the world it supposedly wants to be. It's way too optimistic with too much of a perfect little ending. "War of the Worlds" wasn't nearly dark enough for me in the final moments. Sci-fi is not my genre, but I really enjoyed so much of it that I can ignore some of the corny coincidences and generally forgettable acting from Cruise. The more you inspect the film, the more problems you'll find, but they're mostly in the opening and the ending moments. The majority of the film is taut and masterful film-making. As usual, a technically brilliant film from Spielberg, if nothing else.