Big Budget waste of time and talent

Rating: 3/10 (17 July 2005)

Just because something is "only a movie" doesn't mean that the filmmaker gets a free ride in terms of making the not conceptually and logically believable. It also means that every film needs a real plot. This took H.G. Wells classic and turned it into a series of horror incidents, cute shots, and cool but unemotionally grabbing special effects. There was no real terror, no at the edge of your seat wondering what was happening, no people trying to combat the aliens (or find away to keep people safe from them). It wasn't even clear how many actual alien breeds there were -- I thought only one while my companion was convince there were "biguns'" and "littleuns'." The only thing this film really had going for it was Morgan Freeman's wonderfully spelling binding narrative ability.
THE SPOILER of the thing that completely and irrevocably spoiled it for me:
Just like in the original (and the earlier film and Orson Welles radio classic) the aliens die because they are allergic to the microbes (bacteria) that are found everywhere on earth especially in the water that covers over 75% of this planet. In the earlier versions this made sense because the aliens came from outer space and had never interacted with any of the life on this planet. But Spielberg decided it would be cool to put the destroying tripods below the ground so they could tear up city streets as they ascended. To do this means that the aliens must have sent at the very least some sort of probes to earth at least tens of thousands of year before. Maybe even tens of millions. No species with a shred of intelligence is not going to verify down to the last detail that the planet that they covet can, in fact, sustain their life forms. It's like not checking the thermometer and putting on a windbreaker to take a stroll in the middle of winter in Alaska! The microbes that these aliens were allergic to have existed on earth since the beginning of life.
It boils down to a bunch of technologically advanced species who are idiots in real life. Maybe this film was meant as a commentary on the world today. Maybe they just wanted to have fun with cool effects and spooky stuff. Maybe the only thing this film has proved is that Dakota Fanning is in the same league as Shelley Duvall as someone who can continually be terrified throughout an entire film and not annoy you very much.
Wait for the DVD  but only if someone else lends it to you and you have absolutely nothing better to do.