A disappointing melting pot of previous alien films

Rating: 4/10 (30 June 2005)

I went into the newest of Spielberg's blockbusters hoping for as rewarding a film as last summer's "The Terminal". In reading the magazine articles about the film I was told that they were going to do the sci-fi genre well by not reverting to the usual stereotypes and catches involved with a action packed, CGI carnival type film. Upon watching a quarter of the film, I was solely disappointed by these aspirations. "War of the Worlds" displayed flat characters usually not found in Spielberg's more successful films. The movie made you sincerely dislike the main characters and as a result of this lack of relation to the characters, there was a painful lack of respite in the intensity and gore of the film. Normally I am not one to shy away from violence and gore in films but "War of the Worlds" spent the entire film on a very high intensity level with unnecessary violence. I began to wonder to myself how many times and how many ways the audience had to see people killed. Spielberg needs to take a lesson from the much higher quality alien invasion type movies like "Signs" and learn that if you want such high intensity you have to relieve the audience of that intensity once in a while otherwise, the audience, like me, will be so sick to their stomachs by the end that your effects will be lost to them.
The film was extremely disappointing and audiences considering the film are better served going to a much higher quality action film like "Batman Begins" this summer.