Some good parts, but not enough to leave you satisfied.

Rating: 6/10 (4 July 2005)

There seems to be a lot of end of the world movies coming out recently that seem to go for this "underlined message" thing, Signs had a guy rediscovering his faith with the backdrop of an alien invasion, Day After Tomorrow had a father reconnecting with his son against the backdrop of a global disaster, and now War of the Worlds has the same type of underlined message thing as well.
A lot of people pan Independence Day, but I liked it because it had action, destruction and mankind winning in the end, a perfect summer popcorn movie, no preachy messages or characters discovering things during a backdrop of something bad happening, basically a fun movie, corny? Yes but fun. The original 1953 War of the Worlds was like this, and remains one of my favorite movies, Jurassic Park was another, and seeing how this was a Spielberg movie I thought it would be another Jurassic Park, but War of the Worlds goes for the sentiment and a character rediscovering something with the backdrop of an alien invasion, but when you have something with WAR in the title you expect a lot more, umm..well WAR action,like Independence day showed, it's like making a movie about Dday and have only a few action scenes and the rest of the movie is about two GI's rediscovering their bonds,be kind of a let down as War of the Worlds was.
This movie did have some great special effects, but man the plot holes, some of them so huge even casual movie patrons noticed them (one involving a plane and a van)and the ending,I almost laughed out loud at the ending for a long time director like Spielberg this is kind of a let down he didn't really see these problems.
It comes down to this, if you like Signs, then more than likely you will enjoy this movie, even with plot holes,if you flat out hated Signs there is a pretty good chance you will not like this movie, and yes the ending in War of the Worlds is just as bad as the ending in Signs..honestly.