A Solid Thriller

Rating: 8/10 (1 June 2007)

If you read the original novel by H.G. Wells (which I recommend, if you haven't--it's a great, quick read, very scary and creepy), you'll find that this movie does its best to follow the storyline, with modifications to suit our modern times. For instance, in the novel, the aliens--delicate, octopus-like creatures who slither around--arrive in cylinders that fall from space, and spend a while in their craters building the tripods, using their long fingers to manipulate building machines while zapping people who become overcurious with their death ray. In the era of bomber aircraft, we would have simply bombed the craters, taking care of the aliens and their construction project before the crisis stage. Instead, the movie has the tripods pre-built and awaiting their drivers.
The Tim Robbins character is a composite of the preacher, with whom the novel's character wanders and who becomes increasingly unstable & eventually necessitates a bash on the head, and the survivalist he encounters later who decides to become a rat-like denizen of the aliens' domain. The van/gun scene was also in the original, only it involved a horse-drawn cart. The train scene, and the ferry are also both effectively re-created in the movie.
All in all, I really enjoyed this movie. I think Spielberg did a solid job, and the tripods are both terrifying and majestic. There's a lot of ground to cover, and some of the movie seems rushed, but I thought it packed plenty of thrills while staying as faithful as possible to the original.