War Of The Worlds

[Clark Chaos]

Gotta say that I really enjoyed the movie. Tom Cruise was pretty good, did a great job at looking scared shitless.

I can see how why the pricetag on that flick was so much.

[dying to see]

this movie was really good EXCEPT the fact that the annoying little chick in the movie didn't get her head ripped to shreds or blasted into a million peaces! also the teenager[son] didn't die either, and they don't explain how the fuck he survived.... it drove me crazy! i hated both those characters and both of them survived! lame. also i was bumbed that the ol' flying ship didn't make it in... from the old 1950's movie... in that one they had to try and blow it up with an atom bomb.. and that was just fuck'n awesome!!

[steven_millan]

"Snore Of The Worlds" was more like it,for this was a definitive poor man's "Independence Day" with the 9/11 scenerio tossed in for(isn't it funny that those aliens looked like relatives of that latter movie's aliens),and Tom Cruise was too unconvincing and badly miscast as a dad(despite giving his best in the role),and the storyline had a decent first half,but pooped out near the end,and Cruise's off-screen killing of a recent "Team America" victim didn't help,either(if they would have made Robbins a child molester,it could have been easily bought,but sadly wasn't here),for it made me lose sympathy for Cruise and made me wish that the aliens would have eaten him and his annoying kids(one more time Dakota Manning was going to scream,I would have...).

A complete disaster from beginning to end,for it's one of Spielberg's worst(rent the new C. Thomas Howell version instead).

[Lou]

I saw War of the Worlds with my mom. I liked it. If Tom Cruise ever comes out of the closet, my mom will be crushed. (If you don't like Dakota Fanning don't watch Steven Speilberg presents "Taken" if they ever repeat it on Sci Fi). That kid can act. I hope she doesn't become a screwed up adult.

[Chris Slack]

Great SFX and destruction sequences but I really couldn't get into the characters, especially the screaming little girl. I think Tom Cruise's character could have been much better if they had another actor doing the role...

[Latte Thunder]

While the mayhem was happening, War of the Worlds was bad ass to watch. It was a pretty convincing holocaust scenario and the aftermath was harrowing. However, in the end, it was a pretty unfulfilling experience. I reflected on it after watching it and realized that there wasn't much happening plotwise except for Tom Cruise and his unwanted children run like hell from an unstoppable alien race for two hours.

The tripods were cool, their beams were cool, the destruction was cool and the very ending, the typically Spielbergian heartwarming, everything is alright ending totally sucked ass. It nearly ruined the entire movie for me.

[steven_millan]

Great SFX and destruction sequences but I really couldn't get into the characters, especially the screaming little girl. I think Tom Cruise's character could have been much better if they had another actor doing the role...

I agree,Chris,for I was thinking that either Mel Gibson,Bruce Willis,Nicolas Cage,or even John Travolta would have been way more convincing in Cruise's role....and yeah,they should have had the teen son bumped off,for that climatic scenerio(near the very end) would have made the movie a little more believable.

[MattV]

I liked it, I'll agree that cruises casting as a dad is kinda hard to buy, but I still think his acting was really good. the only thing that really bothered me, was that the son survived, it wouldnt have pissed me off as much if they would of elaborated more on how he managed to survive and to make it to boston.... otherwise a very enjoyable movie I thought

[Remo D]

Finally caught up with this one. Not bad, actually--I enjoyed most of the effects, and the violence was surprisingly intense (glad I didn't take my son--sure, it was technically off-screen, but how 'bout those gunshots through the car window?).

Yes, I wanted the little girl to be vaporized. Yes, the son's fate was too perfect.

But let's be fair--a poor man's INDEPENDENCE DAY? I think Devlin and Emmerich owe one hell of a lot more to H.G. Wells and George Pal for their "original" movie than Spielberg will ever need to tip his hat to THEM for!

[MattV]

But let's be fair--a poor man's INDEPENDENCE DAY? I think Devlin and Emmerich owe one hell of a lot more to H.G. Wells and George Pal for their "original" movie than Spielberg will ever need to tip his hat to THEM for!

totally agree

[Remo D]

Well... I just sat through the C. Thomas Howell version of WAR OF THE WORLDS last night, but I can't say that it did anything at all for me. The "R" rating was intriguing but pointless--the female lead appears topless in the first scene for no other apparent reason but to get that "R," and people say "fuck" in the film. And I suppose some of the human demises were rather grisly, but I still felt that the violence hit home more effectively in the Spielberg version.

'Fraid this one bored me to near-tears. I thought the production values were those of a typical TV movie; the decision to change the tripods to six-legged "bugs" took away from the uniqueness of the project; and oh, the talk, talk, talk, talk, TALK! I also thought it was more than a little presumptuous


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of the filmmakers to tweak the ending to provide more human intervention. I thought the whole (masterful) point of the H.G. Wells original was that nature (or God, if you prefer) had things under control where human firepower was completely worthless. Rabies vaccine? That doesn't even contain live cells, for heck's sake!

Well, since the novel's in the public domain, there was apparently yet a THIRD version of WAR OF THE WORLDS to deal with this year--the one I haven't seen yet was a Sci-Fi Channel original that was set in Victorian London for the first time. Heard it was completely awful, and I'm not going out of my way to catch it. Anybody?

[steven_millan]

Finally caught up with this one. Not bad, actually--I enjoyed most of the effects, and the violence was surprisingly intense (glad I didn't take my son--sure, it was technically off-screen, but how 'bout those gunshots through the car window?).

Yes, I wanted the little girl to be vaporized. Yes, the son's fate was too perfect.

But let's be fair--a poor man's INDEPENDENCE DAY? I think Devlin and Emmerich owe one hell of a lot more to H.G. Wells and George Pal for their "original" movie than Spielberg will ever need to tip his hat to THEM for!

In either way,both "Independence Day" and the new "War Of The Worlds both massively suck in a very big way.

And,so that new DTV "War Of The Worlds" movie(with C. Thomas Howell and Jake Busey)really blows,eh?! When I first caught a glimpse of the trailer,I thought that it looked like a third rate made-for-cable TV redux that both TNT,the Sci-Fi Channel, and the USA Network both immediately turned down upon airing,which is why it ended up where it now is.

[steven_millan]

And,check out Sam Raimi buddy Josh Becker's review of the film(for which he trashes yet another mainstream Tinseltown movie,the same way he always does)....

http://www.beckerfilms.com/WaroftheWorlds2005.htm

[kolchak72]

Well, since the novel's in the public domain, there was apparently yet a THIRD version of WAR OF THE WORLDS to deal with this year--the one I haven't seen yet was a Sci-Fi Channel original that was set in Victorian London for the first time. Heard it was completely awful, and I'm not going out of my way to catch it. Anybody?

I've seen it.You are wise not to catch it.

It is supposed to be the most faithful adaption of the novel,and since I haven't read it I can't tell you if it is.Unfortunately,that also means endless dialog scenes with nothing of importance really being relayed.It takes over 30 minutes before the opening of the ship and subsequent attack occurs,and much of that time is spent watching our protagonist walking a couple of miles to the crash site...then back...then to the site...then back...you get the picture.

The ship designs aren't too bad,but I've seen better CGI on an old episode of REBOOT,and you never get any sense of the things actually being in the same place as the rest of the film.The actors are awful,with some of the worst english accents I've heard.And at 3 hours,it makes watching paint dry look like a day at an amusement park.The whole thing was shot on video and filmlooked,which isn't always a bad thing,but the process is used so hamfistedly that everyone moves in a jerky style,as if every couple frames were cut out.fast movements tend to make actors look like really bad stop motion.

Ignore this one like the plague,Remo.