A Genuine Spielberg Flick!

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2005)

War Of The Worlds Spielberg Style: We take the original 1953 film, we take some elements from that. We take the Jeff Wayne album, and we again take some elements of that. We also read the original novel and we take some elements of that too. Then we add a ruined marriage, which presumably will be glued to one piece again in the end.
We'll make sure that Spielberg's hand is all over the movie, by adding STUNNING and extremely well done CGI FX which still show they're CGI. Although my belief is that they're really state of the art, you still can see too well that the tripods are computer generated.
We scare the living daylights out of the audience by building up so much suspense (The silent struggle scene!) that I almost took a bite out of the back of the seat in front of me. Add some genuine emotions (The Fear in Cruises eyes at one point, as well as fanning going berserk in the back of the van!) and we have a nice movie which leaves you a little disappointed as you leave...
One thing I missed in this movie was the famous battle cruiser "Thunderchild". The ferry scene pretty consistent with the book and album, yet in the book it was referred to as a 'little steamer' crammed full with refugees.
However the images of the tripods wreaking havoc are burned onto my retina... And I'll definitely will go and see it once more! It's not a waste of money, not even if it sees daylight on DVD!