All my nightmares in one movie!!!

Rating: 9/10 (28 July 2005)

I've read the book, I've seen the original film, and I even have Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of War of the Worlds. Yes - I am a big fan of this story, probably the best sci-fi story ever written. So it was worrying to hear that Steven Spielberg was making a new War of the Worlds movie.
There are those who, it seems, go into a theatre with notepad and pen taking notes, from what I have read amongst some of the comments already posted. It's true that there are many glaring improbabilities throughout this film, but nothing that couldn't be explained away with some boring additions to the script, such as Cruise clearing a path for his car to escape the wreckage of a jumbo jet, or... well, I won't go on.
To be fair to Spielberg, when you're playing with huge budgets you have to attract huge audiences, and you're not going to do that by catering only for a minority of seriously pedantic sci-fi enthusiasts. However, despite presuming I was going to be thoroughly disappointed as the end credits rolled, I was thoroughly delighted - albeit in a strange way.
The film starts off in a typical Spielberg way - Dad, kids, Mum, family problems, blah blah blah. Then there's a storm with lots of lightning - yeah yeah. All electrical power is cut off from anything that uses electric, probably taken from Close Encounters. Cruise goes into town to get his car back that his stupid son took without permission and the ground begins to crack open. At this point Cruise begins to smile as if this is a lot of fun, which is a nice touch and consistent with the character he is playing. Then a huge machine rises from the underground and from thereon the film takes on a different, threatening flavour.
The first scene with the tripod is scary, intensified by the haunting noise it makes. The effects that follow are faultless. This is the wake-up call for Cruise to get out of there sharpish, and we follow him and the kids as they drive out of town. There's no going back, not even for the audience. We have to stick close by because this is purely from a singular point of view - that of this family. Is this a good thing? In my opinion yes because the whole essence of this story is about what we don't know rather than what we do know and as human beings we can only experience events from a personal point of view. In the book by H. G. Wells the story is written from a journalists point of view.
There's a disturbing scene involving a runaway train, which put me in mind of Day of the Triffids (another classic). But the basement scenes with the probing alien eye, just like in the '50's movie, were the most tense and scary moments of the entire film. Unfortunately, when the aliens enter the basement in person we are given too much information. H. G. Wells never went into too much detail when it came to describing the appearance of the Martians simply because there are no words to describe them. Sadly, the aliens in Spielberg's War of the Worlds are simply too... well, simple. But then I come back to my original point of audience accessibility.
Anyway, I thoroughly recommend this film as long as it is viewed on the big screen. I'm going to see this again!