Despite holes, a fantastic flick

Rating: 9/10 (15 August 2006)

I have finally seen this movie now that it has come onto the HBO heavy rotation, as was my plan.
In reading these reviews, I must say that I find the bulk of them to be fantastically petty and purposefully critical without good reason.
It's apparent to me that many of the reviewers are too young, or ignorant of the original War of the Worlds, to know that the endings of both versions are identical. This quibbling about the way the aliens so suddenly go down ignores this salient fact.
Second, many complain that Robbie re-appears at the end despite "being blown up in a fireball". Until I read these reviews, this never occurred to me; nothing in the film suggests that everyone in that short blaze of fire perished; who is to say that the son did? In addition, the fireball occurs minutes after the parting of father and son; the boy could be a hundred yards away at the point of the explosion.
The holes that do bother me include the sudden appearance of working camcorders and digital cameras where moments before no electronics, not even watches, were functional; this makes little sense. I also groaned when Cruise's stolen minivan is untouched by the nearby crashed airliner, and I groaned at the news crew who were desperately searching the crashed airliner for food despite being surrounded by thousands of abandoned houses... and why would they be so hungry after only a day or so of alien fleeing? The final groan was for the public bulletin boards plastered a'la 9/11 with "Missing" posters only a day or so after the invasion begins, as if the invasion had been going on for months.
All that aside, I thought that the evolution of Cruise's character was excellent, I thought that Dakota Fanning did a superb, REALISTIC job as an extremely whiny and needy 10-year-old girl in the crisis of her life. Many here call her performance "too screechy" and I believe that this is because in so many Hollywood pictures, kids under horrific pressure suddenly morph into heroic, thoughtful adults. No, they don't... they scream and cry and are needy, just as Spielberg directs Fanning to portray here. Excellent job by both.
I'm not a big special effects fan... they're great if they help the plot. The effects here are absolutely spectacular; the tripods are incredibly realistic, there's no "blue-screen" fuzzy outlines or perspective problems, and there's no reliance on effects to carry the action, thank you. Well, well done.
I'm very pleased that Spielberg stuck to the original ending, and didn't give in to the modern audience's desire to see Americans blow away every obstacle in their path. No, the aliens go down in a clever and realistic fashion that stays true to the original... no pandering to those who simply must see the US Army have its way by blowing up the latest threat (just to make us all feel good about how we can't get the job done in Iraq). Kudos, Mr. Spielberg, for staying true to the roots of the picture you so superbly honored.
Overall, character development made the movie; the eye of the film stays with the main characters and is realistic in that, unlike Hollywood standardization, they are determined to escape the invaders, NOT to cleverly figure out a way to sneak a computer virus and a nuke on board (as in the ridiculous "Independence Day" "We're American so we nuke everything while waving our flag" crap).
From the enthralling first appearance of the tripods to the superbly crafted characters to the sense of dread throughout and for the cinematic eye and faithful ending of this film, I give it a nine, holding back a point for the couple of plot-groans in the beginning of the picture.