All other alien invasion movies prostrate and forget themselves before this one

Rating: 9/10 (6 July 2005)

It really is that good. ID4, in all it's box-office glory, was still just a campy piece of entertainment that didn't take itself too seriously, and that was in it's favor. The original 50's WotW, well, I simply don't think very many people KNEW how to make a good movie back then. The original version was naive and ill-constructed, like a kids comic book from that era, but still had intrinsic value in it's writing (I am willing to acknowledge the films importance of special effects development, as well). But this NEW version from Spielberg, who shines like he hasn't in a while, blows those other movies away. In fact, it disintegrates them as easily is the alien's heat-ray disintegrates humans. It has a thrilling action sequence in the beginning that punches you in the gut the same way Saving Private Ryan did in it's first half hour. It leaves you breathless and hardly gives you a chance to breath until the movie's over.
After the initial shock of the alien invasion, the movie takes a drastic turn. It becomes a holocaust movie, focusing on the escape of Rey Ferrier (Tom Cruise), and his children from an ex-wife (Justin Chatwin and Dakota Fanning). Here is WoW's main source of drama, and it is compelling. Spielberg brilliantly uses 9/11 imagery along with his lessons learned while filming Schindler's List. The effect is emotionally devastating and almost on par, if not on par, WITH Schindler's List. It feels that raw and real. This isn't you're traditional happy "mankind unites under tremendous adversity" tale. Oh no. Cruise's character has to spend as much time fighting off humans as he does running from aliens. Little bits of family values moments poke out here and there, but they never seem forced or contrived, and helps the over-all story arch. The real heart-wrenching moments come whenever Rey attempts to hide the terrible reality of the situation from his daughter by many means. "You're gonna wanna look around, but you're just gonna look right at me," one might remember from the adds. Dakota Fanning could easily get a supporting actress nomination. She is that good.
Few people, but many internet trolls, will find things to nitpick over in this movie, such as how the aliens got here. The implication is that their machines were buried under the earth for god knows how long, just waiting for the aliens to arrive. I can see the problem with that, but alien invasion movies all come with many inherent glaring technical discrepancies that much can be forgiven. For example, advanced alien races are not likely to be hostile, and if they were, they would never put themselves in danger. They'd use robots or a subservient race, or possibly creatures that they designed at the genetic level to be really nasty. At any rate, they would never do it themselves for their own safety. In the face of all that, my dis-belief for a movie like this is very flexible.
Some people will complain about the ending, and this will only show how illiterate they are. Knowing the book really does help on'es appreciation for the movie. The movie ends the way it does because the book ends this way, plain and simple. It may be hard to swallow that advanced alien invaders can be done away with microbes, but Wells himself, as the surrogate hero of the book, remarked at how astonishing it was. He postulates that somehow the Martians (they were Martians in the book) had wiped out their own diseases centuries ago, and simply didn't factor it into daily life or their plans for Earth. Spielberg didn't have time to include that whole paragraph in the movie, but those who read the book have that masticate. Naysayers will also complain about how unlikely it is that none of the family dies and they're found in Boston with their house untouched after all the aliens died. Again, from the book. For the movie, you can just replace London with Boston. Same thing here. The aliens pushed on as far as London, and then died. People immediately began repopulating the place. Perhaps they simply returned to their home, or perhaps the aliens never made it so far as their house. It's like in the book when he's reunited with his wife at his home, which is also miraculously still standing.
There are a lot of internet trolls out there just aching to make a name for themselves by blasting WotW. The truth is, this movie is too mature for them, and they would rather make fun of something that's quite beyond their grasp than except the fact that a filmmaker may be ahead of them. Another problem is that some people are far to cynical for a Spielberg movie these days, no matter how dark and gritty he makes it. My advice, if you're reading this, is don't listen to anyone who says this is a bad movie. They're just plain wrong.