Not as good as I had hoped

Rating: 5/10 (1 July 2005)

I'm a big Spielberg fan and when I heard he was doing WOTW, I thought there could be no one better to attempt it. I saw it last night and have to say, I'm torn. It wasn't what I had hoped. We see all the tanks and Bradleys firing at, what, obviously the alien walkers, and to build up to it we see the son begging, "I have to see this." Through that entire sequence I was thinking, this is gonna be cool. We're gonna see the alien walkers in a valley surrounded by tanks, and helos and jets will come soaring in. These feeble weapons will quickly be wiped out, but it could have been one of the coolest shots in the world. But we never see it. I felt cheated.
I will admit the visual effects were good and I was startled a few times. The sound effects were insanely cool, especially the initial "call". It sounded like someone stuffed my head in a tuba and blew as hard as they could. Some of the performances were strong, but where was the story? This film could have been a lot better. I've seen the older version, but have never read the book. I'm going to assume the older version is a whole lot closer to the book.
Overall, I was mildly entertained.