Don't Even Compare it to the Book

Rating: 3/10 (7 July 2007)

First, I will say that there were only three major things that were actually taken from the book.
1. The fact that the alien's machines were tripods and had tentacles 2. There was a scene in which the main character is in a basement 3. The demise of the aliens.
Other than that, it's pretty much just another alien flick squashed on top of a 'single parent getting to know his kids' subplot.
What made H.G. Wells' book so fantastic was that it moved with the subtlety of an M. Night Shyamalan film. There wasn't a lot of fight scenes, or running through the streets. After the initial attack with the 'heat ray' the rest of the book basically revolves around the main character walking through horrific desolation and having all his preconceptions about the 'modern-ness' of the Victorian World dashed to pieces. It was moving, it made you think. Plus my favorite scene in the book doesn't even translate into a modern retelling. It involves the main character in a horse drawn carriage traveling down a road in the rain. One of the tripods steps out of the shadows and into the road in front of the guy, terrifying the horse so much that it falls and breaks its neck and leaving our hero to stare up at the thing, illuminated by flashes of lightning. It's an incredibly described scene and really illustrates how unprepared and arrogant Wells felt the Victorians were.
Now onto the movie...in modern times...and not in England...for some reason. Oh right, the reason was to have Tom Cruise in it. Gotcha.
The aliens aren't shocking and neither is their technology because the world at that point is the world that has been exposed to Issac Asimov, Star Wars, Alien etc. They have nuclear weapons and modern tanks. Wells' 'heat ray' isn't a shocking thing in this context.
The directing is well done, but the story is such a departure from, well, the story that it really doesn't work if you've ever read the book.
Certain unnecessary plot points such as the tripods already being under the surface for a long while before the events of the movie and the red fungus/lichen stuff that spreads everywhere feel really forced.
The narration, drawn right from the book, seems so out of place as the world it was criticizing isn't even being depicted.
I will say that the acting was good and engaging, but the mushy sub plot really detracts from the flow of the story.