*** Official WAR OF THE WORLDS Review Thread (1 Viewer)

[RobLe]

except for the first 20-30 minutes, dreadfully terrible...ending angered me in a way that few movies have...I expected much more...

 

[Anthony Neilson]

This was a winner for me, overall ; along with SIN CITY, it's the best of the year's blockbusters so far.

I don't really get everyone's problem with the ending.In Spielbergian terms it's very far from sentimental, given that it's a blockbuster. It's quite possible that certain areas would still be untouched. War's like that - it doesn't make sense. And what a dark message Spielberg's smuggled in alongside all the mayhem ; the way in which Cruise's character becomes compromised was very daring for a big-budget movie. I'm still quite shocked by it, and it's that that stayed with me at the end.

All that aside, this is a blockbuster, not an art house movie, and it delivers in spades. Yes, it suffers a little from the fact that the first half-hour is SO incredible that the more intimate focus of the second half could seem anti-climactic. But I think that'll make more sense to people on their second viewing.

For me it's just so refreshing to see a film with clear, well set-up action sequences. I liked BATMAN BEGINS but the action sequences were just incompetent, imo, and I despair at how few directors know how to do them these days.
This most recent phase of Spielberg's has been exceptional. Many of the films have been flawed but they've all been interesting and I admire the man hugely for not just resting on his laurels. With WAR OF THE WORLDS he's returned to the kind of fare he made his name with, but he's a changed man. For those of us who felt THE COLOUR PURPLE (and HOOK of course) were the nadir of his career, it's a change for the better.

 

[CraigL]

Thank god others feel the same way. I thought I was the only one. In my mind, Spielberg has completely lost it. I haven't enjoyed any of his movies since 1998 and that was Saving Private Ryan. It's like he's taken the aspects of his older films that people loved and given us the quick and dirty vesions of them. Emotions for Dummies, if you will. Everything is simple and everyONE is a stereotype. Tom is the "bad father." Dakots is the "annoying but loveable daughter." The son is the "rebellious teenager." Tim was the "seemingly-drunk crazy." They're all two-dimensional. Even his beginnings feel like a huge set-up. And my god, how many times do we have to watch EVERY SINGLE PERSON or THING near Tom Cruise get obliterated but Tom Cruise? I know he's Tom Cruise and all and you have to suspend disbelief a bit but this pushes it over the top. Even Dakota, who I ADORE in everything she does, was someone that I just wanted to slap and say "shut up" to. And then ending? What else can be said that hasn't already been said...dumb, overly sentimental and a complete let-down. That and the special effects weren't nearly as well integrated as I expected them to be. I'm trying to find one redeemable moment in the movie and I can't. Just tragic what has happened to Steven. How the mighty have fallen.

D+....at best.

 

[Robert Anthony]

In a career that has done nothing but evolve, unfold and move forward in surprising and always interesting ways, the most surprising thing about "War of the Worlds" isn't that Spielberg is tacking "bad aliens" or that he's finally making the full-scale disaster movie that's always seemed slightly beneath him. The surprise is that "War of the Worlds" is a reversion, for Spielberg. This movie combines both the best AND the worst from his first two Jurassic Park movies, and amplifies those elements two-fold.

You could do worse than to "revert" back to some of the biggest and best popcorn-chompers in recent cinema history, and what he gets right he gets REALLY right. The initial invasion, the interplay between Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin all seems very easy, very unforced, and Spielberg's direction here is superb. As a matter of fact, the low level dread and gut-churning tension he grows during the first 45 minutes is honestly, right up there with the best moments of Jaws, if not actually a little more horrific due to the expert matching of imagery and sound design. If you'd have told me that "War of the Worlds" would elicit more dread and fear than "Land of the Dead" I'd have laughed at you. But it's true. And if this movie doesn't win for Sound Design, nothing should.

As a matter of fact, the first 45 minutes as Cruise and family run and stress and stressfully run, is so effectively shot and edited that it compensates for the following hour and 10 that can't help but shine a huge spotlight on the mediocre story underneath. It's not so much that you're willing to FORGIVE the movie for such blatant Spielberg-isms (specifically his over-use of the "heroic immunity." which might simply be a warm-up exercise to prepare you for the big deus-ex-machina that is the ending of both Wells' story and this movie) it's that he's knotted the guts up so much that you're twitchy and nervous and wondering what the hell just punched you in the stomach, so much that you're not really paying attention to where the movie is going wrong.

But the movie does go wrong, in a fair number of places. The characters are flat-lines, and mostly irritating as hell, even down to Dakota Fanning's portrayal of the daughter. She has perfected the wide-eyed frightened reaction shot, and that's one of Spielberg's best used special-effects, so to speak, but even she starts to grate after about an hour and 10. Cruise's character grates immediately, but that's his character, so it's not so bad. Unfortunately, you're also led to believe there will be some sort of arc--but there isn't. He succeeds by accident the entire movie. And Justin Chatwin plays the sullen son adequately, but the sullen son is such an irritating, maddening archetype that's employed in this movie at it's most annoying, that his character suffers for it. Tim Robbins' character actually has more development and arc in about 15 minutes of screentime total than the three leads.

And while Spielberg is great at, and rightfully admired for, inserting little moments here and there that you like in spite of their corniness and convienience, with this movie, he misuses those moments painfully. They usually work as garnish, as that little extra something on top, that pushes a scene from good to great. In this movie, they're more often than not the ENGINE to push the plot forward, and the movie gets steadily more rickety because of that, until finally the movie collapses inward under it's own weight in the last 10 minutes.

But then again--so did Jurassic Park. And like Jurassic Park, you'll find yourself remembering the awe-inspiring and jaw-dropping set pieces and sound and editing work before you remind yourself of the numerous plot holes and the ciphers of character at the center of the movie. It's an uneven effort from Spielberg. Luckily for us, even an uneven Spielberg effort easily trumps most director's good films. It's worth watching, even for its flaws. The imagery is that powerful, and the FX work is so good, it'd be a shame not to catch it in the theater. That first 45 minutes will stick in your head long after you've left the theater.

 

[StevenFC]

I wanted a remake of this movie for one reason. A big honkin' battle scene between the military and the aliens with updated special effects containing every piece of hardware known to man--and I didn't get it (I'm guessing the deadline that Spielberg and Dennis Muren were under had something to do with that). That's the only reason I go to movies like this. I don't really care much about plausibility and such. Just blow me away. It came close, but it didn't quite get there. It was ok on its own, but it's not the remake I was hoping for.

 

[Cagri]

I went to see this film with lots of expectations after watching several trailers which were great.

One word: Terrible.

I am utterly disappointed, and also very surprised to see that this film gets very high ratings here.

The name of the film is even misleading. War of the worlds?? It's a survival story of a dad and two kids one of which is so stupid that he flat out enters the fire zone "to see" what's happening, and somwhow survives and manages to get to his mother and probably we are meant to think about the relationship of the dad and son and the challenging personality of the son, as well as his hidden aim to prove himself to his father etc.


Actually I was afraid to see the film tied up like this. It's always difficult to end a film like this because it's a very hard story really. Aliens invading the world; if the director puts it the way it's done in this film, i.e. big superiority of alien technology against humans, there's only one easy way out of it and that's also the most stupid one: just make aliens prone to something that belongs to earth. Surprisingly enough, it is again water related!

The performance of Tom Cruise was great. And the first half of the movie was good as well. That's what is positive about this film only IMO.

3 out of 10.

(Admin note - spoiler tags added - let's be more careful about spoilers in the Review thread)

 

[todd stone]

saw the movie and LOVED it. This movie will make a great DVD showcaser, especially with the bass.

few minor hiccups along the way, but a summer treat

:star: :star: :star:

 

[John-Tompkins]

I thought this movie absolutely and positively SUCKED BIG TIME ! ..Sooooo disappointed, being that sci-fi is my favorite genre..I just cant believe so many people hear actually liked it ..I know I can never trust the htf crowd again to help me decide if I should spend my hard earned money ..oh well, to each his own I guess.

Come on, I know its just a movie and I can suspend my common sense for a coupe of hours but the holes in this movie are just sooo blatant..
The charactors are two demensional and I could have cared less about what happened to em ..T. Cruise's son actually got on my nerves more then the little girl screaming the whole movie and T. cruise himself.

The aliens have studied us for all that time huh ..pretty freakin stupid aliens then if you ask me..

I hated the fact that the director showed you just a small portion and never got the feel for the whole picture.comeon man, I wanna see what going on..

Special effects are the only thing this movie has ..I wonder what Hollywood would do if they actually had to rely on making a good movie without special effects..

The thing I didnt like about the movie was the beginning, middle and ending..With the middle being the least suckiest and the ending, well..

 

[Mark Hayenga]

Put me down in the 'hated it' camp. I didn't care about any of the characters. The most significant suspense was when I was about to look at my watch and was terrified that I'd find out only 5 minutes had passed since I looked at it last.

 

[Dave Hackman]

I liked this movie better then Star Wars: Episode 3 and Batman Begins. Cruise did a great job and was quite believable as the lead character.

His character’s ability to get out of the most impossible situations wasn’t nearly as easy to believe but once I accepted him as the luckiest man to walk the face of the earth I never looked back.

I liked the way this movie looked. It really seemed like you were there on the ground witnessing the attacks as they occurred.

Laser blasts that disintegrated people looked cool and almost seemed like a nice way to die. This was a hell of a lot cleaner then what happened to those poor saps in Land of the Dead. As much as I liked the way people were blasted,I wasn't particularly thrilled with the flying trail of clothes left behind by the recently departed. It just looked weird.


I loved the sound of those machines and their laser shots. They sounded great. I really felt afraid as they fired off their weapons. The great sound effects in this movie made the experience a lot more fun. I look forward to hearing this on DVD or HD DVD.

The one thing that may detract from this movie that I actually liked was the calmness of the struggling humanity. They were unbelievably tame and quiet. None of the fleeing for their life humans ever over shouted the main character no matter where they went. While this is probably not what would have happened I am thankful because I hate watching people stress ungracefully.

I would have liked to have seen this movie trimmed a bit more. I had no problem with the overall length but rather with some of long scenes focusing on the daughter and the son. To be honest I could do without the annoying son completely. The girl was ok but she was a bit much, more then once. The ending could have been a little more interesting and less abrupt.

I liked Mel Gibson’s movie Signs and this movie has many basement scenes that are reminiscent of the one found in that film. This is a good movie to see on a big screen cranked up loud.

B+

 

[Joel Vardy]

I find myself in two camps on this one:

1) The first part of the movie that led to the actual 'invasion' was well done and extremely powerful. Those who think these teenagers are annoying either don't have any in their family or are in denial about their own teen years.

2) Somehow I found many of the 'tricks' used to scare us a bit manipulative and derivative (ironically many where derivative of Steven's own legacy of similar fare). I expect a bit of this (especially since Spielberg was a student of Hitchcock's techniques) but I didn't expect to see so much ET/CEOTK tricks to make up the bulk of the material. I know it is targeted at teens rather than adults (many of whom have never seen Jaws, not to mention the extraterrestial legacy of this director) but I thought this was one trick too many. Maybe I'm a bit jaded from the interminably long Star Wars series and the numerous cheesy and superior F/X over the last 30 years but I was expecting a bit more originality. I just found the tripods a bit ungainly and the overly long sequence in the basement with the mechanical 'eye' reminicent of the Abyss (which was done with quite a bit more subtlety by Cameron).
I guess many of Spielberg's desciples and contemporaries have overtaken him in the effects department (especially Cameron).

Non-the-less, this is the summer and the target audience and IQ drops substantially over the Oscar-oriented serious stuff later in the year. Everything being equal it was ultimately quite entertaining and the performances were between average to quite good (especially Cruise, who spanned stereotypical neglectful parent to overy concerned and overly protective -- not an altogether unrealistic arc given the circumstances). The kids lacked some depth but overall the girl was well acted as well. An overall B effort and strictly popcorn fare. The overall rating was brought up considerably by the incredible sound design and imagery. A solid effort but as others have noted a bit rushed in the execution since Spielberg is already focused on his next project to be released this year (VENGEANCE -- focused on the Munich Massacre from the '72 Olympics).

Joel

 

[TommyJD]

The movie dragged me in right at the beginning-the initial encounter was amazing.Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning were terrific throughout and Tim Robbins gave another fantastic performance.Throw in all the excellent special effects and thrills ,director Spielberg has done it again.He entertained me for 2 hours.Isn't that the whole point?

 

[andrew markworthy]

This film will not appeal to the hard of thinking. Anyone wanting a re-run of Independence Day is going to be disappointed, although the loud bangs and special effects may be sufficiently stimulating to the brain stem for it to be a not totally wasted experience.

This is a great film, and I should stress that generally I am underwhelmed by Spielberg (even to the extent of falling asleep during Jurassic Park).

For those beefing about the ending and how dumb it was, I'd say that they've utterly missed the point of the film. The ending in Well's book was the equivalent of e.g. The Crying Game or The Usual Suspects in its day. However, Wells was making a serious point. If your knowledge of Well's writings is restriced to his science fiction, then you may be unaware that he also wrote a large number of social concerns books and novels. His science fiction carries on these themes by other means, and WOTW is as much about the fragility of social structure and taking things for granted as it is about invading aliens. Spielberg has twisted this theme into a modern-day concern about relationships and helping others. The central character is selfish:

We see him at the start refuse to do an extra shift at work - we suspect not because he had the kids to look after but because he wanted to annoy his boss. Later, it's his son who helps passengers onto the ferry, not him. It is only when he finally does a selfless act by trying to destroy the tripod by attempting to commit suicide using the grenades that redemption comes and others help him. And the reward is that the machine is destroyed and he and his daughter escape.


Through the film he does not learn to communicate better with his kids, but rather to stop being self, self, self. The ending is not an argument that rich folks will get to keep their nice houses whilst the poor suffer:

Look what happened to ex-wife and new husband's house.


Instead, the ending of the film points to a simple message -

he has now reached a stage of emotional awareness of his kids that should have been there all along - he is now at a point where he can begin. The contented safe household in front of him is the goal he can now realistically aim for. In more than one sense, it is the small simple things of life that matter.

Of course this is not all the film is about, but it is a key theme, in the same way that E.T. was about a child's response to his parents' divorce.

I would also say that some folks must have very delicate kids. My 9 and 11-year olds loved it. They said it was scary in parts, but as my daughter said 'that's part of the fun'.

 

[Arjan S]

I liked it but was disappointed. I thought it was gonna be a spectacle like Independence Day but with the seriousness of signs.Instead it was basically a signs remake.

It seemed like the whole invasion was in the New York Area. I wanted a more global feeling to it. I didn't like the 911 imagery either(ie.people walking over the bridge, Tom Cruise with ash over him or walls with pictures of missing people)I also didn't like Ray's children.

But the film has a nice pace, genuine thrills and scares.

I think I read many months ago this was supposed to have the largest budget of all time,(It doesn't), So i was expecting something very epic, thus the disappointment.

overall 7/10

 

[Gralen]

I saw the movie last night. I give it a C+. I was expecting it to be the remake or at least close to the book. The begining was good and the housing sequence with Tim Robbins was scarey scene. But I wanted to see a knock down drag out fight between the U.S and the aliens with Russians, France British and Chinese along for the ride. I was a child when I read the book but wasnt the main character a reporter. Since the book was written in the 1800's I expected the technogoly to be primative back then, and the first movie was in the mid 20th century. Some of the scene were from the first movie and some were from Et and Jurrasic Park. My girlfriend liked it but I thought the first movie was better. The special effects were good. As for Tom Cruise, He did a pretty good job as a parent but I really dont like many of his movies except Top Gun, Collactoral, Risky Business and Mission Impossible II. This is the second movie I saw this year Star Wars being the first. I cant wait to see Batman and after that Fantastic Four.(Yeah I am a marvel head) BY the way didnt those Aliens look like the aliens in another movie that involed a pilot and a computer geek that saved the world

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Let me say right off the bat that this incarnation of War of the World has one of the most inappropriate and embarrassingly awful endings I've ever seen. Lest you think my problem is with the story itself, think again; the concept is one of the great masterstrokes of science fiction, one whose novelty far exceeds the drawback of the plot holes that result. I loved Signs, I loved the original Wells story. The embarrassment of the ending is unique to this particular telling.
And yet I find myself forced to recommend the film even considering, because everything up to that point represents disaster filmmaking at its finest and most horrifyingly real. I've never seen an alien invasion but if I'd had I'm certain it would almost exactly like this. The tripods are an aesthetic decision, a nod back to the source material. But the view from the ground nails human nature more accurately and more comprehensively than any film I can remember. There is a moment early on where Rachel gives her father parenting advice. It raises the irritating precocious child red flag and is notable for being the only time I doubted the believability of a character's actions in the entire movie.
And thank God, because the film peaks with its human moments. I winced at moments of humanity's worst, like when men murder innocents without hesitation such is their desperation for a leg up in the game of survival. I was inspired by moments of humanity's best, as when the son risks helping a couple people onto a ferry after he has already made it to safety. I've seen masterpieces with one view or the other, but by placing them in sharp relief within the same movie, Spielberg allows the reality to finally cut through the editorializing. The matter-of-fact presentation is the opposite of what we expect from him, and gives the money shots real power. When we see bodies floating down the Hudson, for instance, he allows the image itself to do the talking — its lack of fanfare caught me off-guard and shook me to my core. Likewise, there is a sequence where Rachel sings herself a lullaby while her father does what must be done behind her that is a formalistic masterstroke, presented in the most realistic of ways. I have seen other sequences in other movies that operate off the same principle. None achieves what this does here, surely one of the best of Spielberg's career.
Both War of the Worlds and Mars Attacks! feature tripods firing heat rays that vaporize people. The fact that the former never once reminded me of the latter throughout its entirety speaks to the staggering level of verisimilitude achieved here. They operate as opposite ends of the same spectrum, with the decision to shoot the majority of exteriors on-location grounding the proceedings with an inherent reality that the other apocalypse movies can't even approach.
The aliens here are also a revelation. The sheer practicality of their methods is staggering; in horror movies you expect people to die, but I was blind-sided with how the aliens made use of them afterwards. Likewise, little touches like grabbing a canned food in their search of home and passing around a discovered photograph to be looked at by each in turn instantly sold them to me as intelligent beings in a way the grandeur of their technological monstrosities never could. More than another other alien invasion on film before it, this one gets the scale and the stakes exactly right. For once the heroes don't escape abduction, allowing us into the heart of the invader's world. The details of their insidious operation are finally shown up close and personal, never slipping from the human scale that makes it all so effective.
People say the characters were bland, but I think that's absolutely not true. They were everyman, certainly — a necessity of creating an audience surrogate — but they are also complex, flawed, and surprising. Only the son strikes a one-note tone, the filmmakers' apparent need to poke fun at patriotic idealists overriding their efforts at creating a compelling, three-dimensional character. But Rachel and Ray are flawed so that they can triumph in overcoming them; even Tim Robbins's gun-nut is a character whose mania is a logical result of who he was and what has happened to him. The scenes between Cruise and Otto at the beginning are also dead-on; the way she reacts to him shows exactly how they could have gotten together to begin with; they way he conducts himself shows exactly why she didn't stay with him. Fanning too is at the top of her game; there is one shot that particularly wowed me later on in the film when Rachel is resting on top of a sleeping Ray on a couch in the basement of the farm house, and the bass rumbles across the soundstage. The close up catches Dakota's eyes searching for the source of the sound; what attention to detail!
So it is that an ending which very nearly undoes everything the movie has worked so hard for previously cannot entirely rob this film of its power. Snip off that final scene and move right into the closing narration, and this film would have surpassed Batman Begins as the best film of the year. Even as it stands, there's far too much greatness here to be ignored.
:star: :star: :star: 1/2 / :star: :star: :star: :star:

(Admin note - review gives away far too much, spoiler tags added)

 

[Greg S]

Not bad but not GREAT. I did enjoy the film but it was missing SOMETHING, I am not sure what but it was definitely lacking something for me.

I'll give it a 6.5-7/10

Greg

 

[Ron-P]

I really enjoyed it and give it a 9/10. Very well done. As with any film it does have it's problems but none bothered me so much so that it took away from the enjoyment. Cruise did a great job as did Dakota Fanning.

 

[Nick Totoro]

I'm one of the underwhelmed with this film, not just for the sake of being an opposing voice. I expected some great things after reading the reviews here and completely missed out on why people were so high on this film. I really wanted to like it, also, but found I just didn't emotionally get anything from it.

Nothing seemed to move me, whether it was the "developing" relationship between Tom Cruise and his children or his zeal to get them to Boston.
I suppose you can say this movie just wasn't for me, but I really did want to like it.

The computer effects were very well done, but I didn't buy into the characters or the acting, save for Dakota Fanning, who played the precocious child part very well. The new husband of the ex-wife appeared very smarmy in a yuppyish way, also, even without really speaking. You could kind of get the sense he wasn't liked by Tom Cruise for whatever reason, even without any example other than being the Stepfather of his kids. I did get a creepy sense from Tim Robbins, but I get that from him anyway...

I was neither relieved they got to Boston safely, not upset at the deaths in the film,
so I guess emotionally the movie really failed to move me.

4/10

Nick

 

[David Brown Eyes]

I loved this film. Sure there were flaws, the last 5 minutes will probably never be watched again.

I am familiar with the book, the radio broadcast and the 1953 movie version. I feel as though Spielberg has produced a good film in the spirit of the previous telling. I am not an easy scare but this movie made me more uncomfortable than any other recent movie I have seen.

Independence Day was fun, it was a movie about heroes and global in scale. WOTW is a more personal story, like signs, another movie I enjoyed.

I loved the limited view, You only saw what the characters saw and it worked brilliantly. There were enough hints regarding just how wide spread the incident was.
flashes of news reports regarding electrical storms in Europe, The news crew showing Ray the tape of an attack with multiple tripods, the rumor of people in Japan destroying a handful of tripods.
As we learned in Jaws, Alien, Signs sometimes “not seeing” is more terrifying than “seeing”.

As to the 9/11 imagery, I see no problem with it. That is what massive destruction looks like. Sure Ray was covered with “white” dust; sure the kid’s first reaction is terrorists. What color of dust would you have liked? The family lived in and around NY. IMHO thinking of terrorism before alien attack is quite natural. The walls plastered with pictures of missing loved ones that is how people will react to the situation.

The complaints about the son. He helps strangers get onto the boat; he wants to fight the aliens, not out of patriotism but because of his nature. The son shows a complete opposite but just as valid a side of humanity as the carjacking mob. Plus what is wrong with wanting to fight because of patriotism? I think his surviving the attack weakens his position in the film.

I am getting a real chuckle out of posts that state “I am a fan of science fiction” and then go on to complain about the aliens being killed by earth bacteria. This is not a lame or just give up ending. Billions have died due to lack of immunity. Nearly 10 million of my people were wiped off the face the Earth due to smallpox, chickenpox, mumps, measles, and the common flue. Sure the aliens should have protected themselves but with great technological advancement comes great carelessness and a sense of invincibility
This is sci fi at its best.

This was the story told and seen by the “everyman” not the super hero. There was no Will Smith or Jeff Goldblum to “save humanity” Yea the ending was syrupy. I would have preferred Ray and his daughter finding Boston completely destroyed and littered with downed pods and dead aliens. Possibly find the mother but with everyone surviving it lessened the impact greatly.

Sure it could have been better but it was a good ride with a bad last 5 minutes.