An American Tale (For a 2nd Time!)

Rating: 10/10 (30 July 2005)

OK, this visually looks excellent. It sticks quite close to the actual book. Mr H. G. Wells was British. The book was set in England. Then that egotistical idiot Orson Wells put it on the radio and set it in America - forever clouding the mind of every American to be born after this.
The Jeff Wayne musical version followed the book the most closely by actually being in England. This film at least tries to stay close to the original storyline without being set in England. This film stinks of a story line that says "America versus The Terrorists!", The Terrorists being The Martians that have lived amongst us unseen for years. The red weed growing on Earth and the walking Tripods are all as seen by H. G. Wells in the book.
Visually the film looks fantastic, but rather shockingly the visible cast only contains 3 stars. Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning & Tim Robbins. Of course if the voice of Morgan Freeman is included then it still only makes 4 sale-able known names. How the makers managed to sell that idea to the studio, only 4 big stars to back the movie?
The main gripe of this film is how the boy playing Cruise's son managed to avoid the Apocalypse Now style Explosion, that thing would have killed anyone with in 20-30 feet of it. No real other gripes with the movie but lots of the science could have holes torn into it.
Watch it, enjoy it. I did like this film and found that genuinely surprising. I tend to expect to hate things hyped this much.