War Of The Worlds on DVD (2005)

Terrible

McClennan from St Helens , 01/07/2005

If you can get over Tom Cruise being cast as a working class dockworker with a 16 year old then you might be able to turn a blind eye to what, upon reflection, is a poor effort from Speilberg. Shunted forward to fill the schedules of him and Cruise, whilst Indiana Jones 4 and MI:3 were delayed, it was shot in 72 days with ten weeks pre-production work and it shows. Take out the CGI and I don't really believe this film has anything to other over the likes of The Day After Tomorrow or possibly even Armageddon. Speilberg said that this is the most realistic film that he's ever shot, yet it has gaping holes running through it. Given that Speilberg hasn't produced a really good film since Schindler's List I think his Abraham Lincoln biopic may be his last shot at a good film because on his blockbusters I think he's lost it and they were his strength. There's so much that could be ripped apart in this film and I'm aware that I may be over-critical but the more I think about it the more that this film sucks, and I'm not putting an extra bonus point on just for the CGI.

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Truly rubbish

Ed from London, England , 02/07/2005

This was such a dissapointment, I wasn't expecting high art but even as a big money film, this was almost too poor for words. A nonsensce script that was full of holes, Video cameras and car headlights working in a electrical blackout, a totally unmotivated parting of two main characters (to illistrate a laboured point about Cruise's parenting skills) leading to an unexplained introduction to Tim Robbins character which in turn leads to a truly unsubtle justification for Guanatamo Bay to mention just a few.

The real shame of it is that the two moments of genuine tension are ruined because the rest of the story telling is so cheap the film doesn't earn it. Almost unmitigatted rubbish from a Director who must know that this is substandard. The ending is so stupid and unearned that people were laughing when I watched it, I would have joined them had I not been rueing the fact that I had improved the Box Office by one. Do not bother with this film!

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War of Attrition

RJTaylor from London , 07/09/2005

Within film anything is possible. You can make cars fly through the air, the dead come back to life and aliens take over the universe. No problem.

And you can make the audience believe all this, provided you set out your own rules and play by them throughout.

You'd have thought Steven Spielberg would know this, but sadly not. The plot of WotW hinges heavily on the incapacitation of all machinery: Cars, electronics, even Tom Cruise's Omega watch, (which we could assume is automatic rather than battery driven). So why, minutes later, do we see some guy running down the street using a gatdam *video camera* to record the attack on his town? And not only this, Spielberg rubs our noses in it by giving us a full-frame shot of the camera's screen after it's dropped to the floor, it's operator having been zapped by the monsters.

It was this that initially caused me to cast a cynical eye over the integrity of the plot, but it wasn't a one-off. I found myself being slowly worn down by the general contempt that Spielberg seems to have for the audience. As for the ending, it may have been faithful to the original story, but it made the whole humans-v-aliens struggle, (and therefore the raison d'etre of the whole film,) utterly pointless.

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Cruise + Spielberg = Egos & False Teeth

Johnathon Woss from Chilly Jockoland , 21/07/2005

Firstly, this isn't as bad a film as many disappointed reviewers are making out.

However this is not a great film either.

Tom Cruise just isn't believable as a divorced, dysfunctional(father of 2 kids), dock worker. He's too young/too clean.

If Spielberg want's me to suspend belief and accept the alien invasion scenario and ignore some of the gaping holes in the plot (Alien E.M.P's knock out all the electrics/batteries yet some guy has a working camcorder?), then the least he can do is cast actors that fit the roles and he hasn't, so 1 mark off for laziness Steve.

We're never really shown the full apocalyptic horror of the alien attack and some cities appear unscathed, which left me feeling that the human race wasn't really on the brink of extinction after all. Then the aliens die quite quickly and everything is hunky dorey. Schmaltzy ending another mark off Stevie.

Switch your brain off and you'll find this film to be quite good. Start thinking about any plot holes etc. and you'll hate this.

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Oh dear

Buddy2 from East Sussex , 25/11/2005

This movie could have been something great; Spielberg, Cruise, the budget! but unfortunately this is not the case, the movie has more holes in it than a sieve and the aliens look something between ET and the Telly Tubbies I was serously disappointed as I love these kind of movies but I'm afraid the acting from Cruise and script just couldn't deliver.

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Ok - but why?

Stephen from Brackley , 23/08/2005

Not sure why they remade this film. It was OK but added nothing new to the original. It was not that clear what happened at the end - it just fizzled out with a damp plop!

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