Spielberg's best since "Saving Private Ryan"

Rating: 10/10 (28 July 2005)

When i went to go see Steven Spielberg's new movie "War of the Worlds" I was expecting it to be a disaster film like others where i will enjoy it and then forget about it the next day. This was such a great film that I enjoyed it and even remembered it the next day.
The film starts out with a man named Ray (Tom Cruise) who gets the chance to have a rare weekend visit from his teenage son Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning). It is shown that Ray is not a good father but he is trying. While he's trying an unusual lightening storm strikes sending out an EMP type of thing and knocking out electricity everywhere. Ray and other curious neighbors go to the spot to see that a huge tripod machine has come out of the ground. We, the audience, were obviously expecting this but Ray and the curious neighbors weren't. When they find out the unknown are not peaceful, everyone does everything to survive.
As the film progresses it gets darker and darker. The Fight between mankind and extra-terrestrials becomes an extermination more than a war and when things spiral out of control, humans start turning on each other. This was shown in a very disturbing scene with Ray and his family with a riot of people fighting for supplies.
The movie is not about disaster. It's about survival. It's the story of a man and his family trying to survive. The film doesn't show other cities being destroyed or what our government is doing. Ray is not an amazing world super hero in the movie, he's like everyone else trying to get through this hell. when the tripods are being seen by Cruise's character Cruise is still in frame instead of showing a full shot of the tripod because what he sees is what we see. He doesn't know entirely what's going on which is why some things are left unexplained (ex. the Red Weed). Spielberg told this story through the eyes of an everyday person which is one thing i found to be really interesting because you don't see that in too many end of the world movies.
The only 2 things that kind of bugged me is that the ending was summed up pretty quick and the other is there's a scene in the movie that would remind you of the rap-tors in the kitchen scene in Spielberg's 1993 movie "Jurassic Park" where I thought Spielberg copied himself but i wouldn't necessarily call that a problem because the suspense still worked.
All in all, another fantastic piece of work from Director Steven Spielberg.