Damn good

Rating: 8/10 (3 July 2005)

When i walked into the cinema, i was expecting a slightly more subtle and more thought provoking type of film. Essentially, i expected it to be quite boring. On the contrary, this is an excellent film, with a tense plot, brilliant special effects and above average acting. Maybe sitting in the front row (about 3 inches from the screen) made everything louder, but still, the way the tri pods moved and destroyed whole towns was captivating, i couldn't take my eyes off of the screen. Spielberg has an amazing way of making you clench the seat as though you're hanging out of the top window of a 20 storey building, and he uses this so effectively that you pay attention to the emotional parts of the film as well as the jaw dropping action scenes. Admittedly you can see similarities with independence day or other apocalyptic thrillers, but this is infinitely better than smith's predictable cliché-filled multi-million pound vessel for instilling yet more American nationalistic pride in the public. Comedic moments are used sparsely to occasionally lighten the mood, a particular line i enjoyed occurs when Cruise's son asks where the machines are coming from (he believes they're terrorists from the middle east), cruise replies "no, they're from somewhere else", "what, Europe?". The film has been tailored for a post 9/11 audience clearly, but this gives the film a more realistic edge, as we recognise intertextual references such as these, making it seem like it could happen. Although i can see a couple of plot holes which need explaining. For example, the madman says that the aliens have been planning this for a million years, suggesting that the machines they had placed here had been here before we were. Therefore, what's the point in placing machines to take over the world when there's no one to fight a million years ago. despite these, you won't notice too much discrepancy and the film is as i said a masterpiece among other average modern apocalyptic movies.