Disappointing and somewhat "rushed"

Rating: 4/10 (3 December 2005)

Let me start by saying that I was never a big "war of the worlds"-fan. It's not that I didn't like the whole thing, and even though I was aware that it existed, it just never interested me enough to read the book or watch the 50s movie-version.
So I didn't really have any great expectations when I watched Spielberg's version, which looks very much like Minority Report but is far from that movie's quality, originality or vision.
Maybe it's because we've seen so many alien-invasion-movies over the years that the genre is just a parody of itself these days. So perhaps Roger Ebert was right when he suggested that Spielberg should've used the original late 19th century-setting instead of setting the movie in the present time.
But I'm rambling.
What really annoyed me was not so much the fact the Spielberg kept stealing from himself (most obvious in the "eye in the cellar"-scene) I also didn't really mind that Tom Cruise just didn't come off as a typical "Joe 6-pack" (he was terribly mis-cast IMO).
I can't quite put my finger on it, but when the movie was over I had a strange feeling that the whole thing seemed rushed, especially towards the end. At this time I didn't know about the tight schedule "War of the Worlds" was produced on, but when Spielberg talked about it on the Bonus-DVD, it made perfect sense.
Annoying kids: Why oh why does Spielberg feel he needs them? During Jurassic Park, I hoped that the T-Rex would disembowel those two annoying brats in slo-mo and during War of the Worlds I hoped that Cruise's offspring would be turned into "blood-guano" in a long and agonizing scene. I can see why a director/screenwriter would throw in kids to give the hero (and us) something to worry about, but when half the audience hopes that those kids will get eaten by the monster ... something has gone wrong I guess..:-) Gaping plot holes: Yes, some of them may have originated in the source material, but who says that you can't change errors in the original story? - So, let's see: The aliens came to earth millions of years ago, leaving behind their tripods. Then, when there's enough of us to justify the invasion/conversion of earth into an alien greenhouse, they return, fire up their tripods and start zapping people by the millions.
Wait a minute: Why the zapping? If they need us to grow their red "weed", disintegrating us seems like an incredible waste of resources, right? Also: How can something as huge as those tripods have been buried under huge cities without anyone ever noticing? Convenient EMP: Everything electronic fails, but people around Cruise have no problem operating their digital cameras? - Almost invincible aliens suddenly "just run in circles and die" or have "no shields". Huh? Even if the aliens succumbed to earth's bacteria, why would their technology fail? Looking back, it's not that WotW is such a stinker, there *are* some very intense and well done scenes and ironically the best ones have no aliens in them at all (see the "Cruise getting car-jacked"-scene. I have to agree with Mr Ebert once more though when he says that those high-points seem to come from a different reality than the rest of the movie.
Especially the ending seemed rushed and "stapled on". I thought I could hear the writer think: "hmm..now we have these incredibly powerful beings, how the hell are we gonna get rid of them again?" I know that the ending comes directly from the book, but like I said before: Why not change stuff that might irritate the audience? These aliens have planned an invasion for millions of years and can't even take into account or counter a bacterial threat? Puh-lease ...
And lastly: Why the silly happy ending? After all he's been through, Tom walks through the empty streets of Boston and when he arrives he re-enacts the final scene of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" (minus John Candy and turkey of course)? Serioulsy, I wouldn't have been surprised if they had played "Every time you go away" on the soundtrack during those last, cheesy minutes. Yeah, and of *course* his annoying son survived that huge fireball and somehow managed to get to Boston before Tom...yikes! So in short: A waste of talent and a pretty big letdown for me personally. This is actually the first Spielberg-movie I've watched that left me totally cold most of the time. And I consider myself a big Spielberg-Fan..