The War of the Worlds

Contains spolier

Note:Fans of Alex Rieneck may prefer to read his fine review.

The carnage and destruction are brilliantly delivered with near-seamless special effects - "you are there!" - providing an action movie par excellence.

Jettison conceptual continuity, though, as any form of thinking during the experience will trigger your Sci-Fi content delivery checksum routines - if you are that way inclined. This will be a difficult task at those points when the movie leaves you lingering in your seat with no firm focus to the screen. The two hours are generous and one hour thirty at most would have delivered a sharper punch.

Dakota Fanning is an impressive young lass who knows how to act and Tom Cruise does a reasonable job, but I feel disappointed that Tim Robbins was brought into the movie at so late a stage and under-uterlised in what looked a very promising evil/twisted character. Miranda Otto and and Justin Chatwin had a cruisy ride and manage to distract the movie goer rather than enhancing the experience.

Providing Tom Cruise with a scene where he takes out a martian is clumsy, removes some of the magic from the special effects and provides an unnecessary detraction from the original story element of having the aliens demise brought on by little bacteria thingies. I would have made less of a point on this if Spielberg didn't insist on prefacing and ending the movie with an Orsen Wells like narration on this very key point, which was out place in style with the rest of the film and would have best been removed. A silent screen at the end of the movie with some scrolling words paraphasing H. G. Wells would have been much more effective. You can check out the original text below.

The final scenes of the movie in Boston and a ludicrous re-union of all key members of this extended and divorce afflicted family is just stupid.

Rating : 4 Stars for the special effects, 2 1/2 Stars for the movie overall.

The 1898 text of The War of the Worlds is worth a read.

"An insane resolve possessed me. I would die and end it. And I would save myself even the trouble of killing myself. I marched on recklessly towards this Titan, and then, as I drew nearer and the light grew, I saw that a multitude of black birds was circling and clustering about the hood. At that my heart gave a bound, and I began running along the road.", War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells, 1898.

(C)opyright Sylvano Lucchetti, 2005.