War of the Worlds 2005

This is a terrific movie that successfully relays an alien invasion on a massive scale, yet keeps it personal by following the horrors experienced by a single family. There have been more likable families portrayed in the movies, but Cruise and company manage to make you care about the terrible things happening around them.

This is an intense ninety minutes. There really isn't any gore but the aliens are so merciless in their attack that things get very disturbing. The fact that they are using humans as fertilizer to "grow" their own planet makes the aliens really scary. This isn't a plotting and planning alien race, it's a force that needs an ingredient for dinner.

People are running everywhere. They are fighting among themselves. There is no doubt that this is an accurate portrayal of what would occur under such terrifying circumstances. Even when offered a helping hand by Tim Robbins's character, Cruise is ultimately faced with a psychopath. It's just one more excruciating challenge for him to deal with in a movie filled with plenty of them.

The alien tripods are incredibly ominous. The way that they step over the landscape is nothing short of horrible. You talk about Hell-on-Earth. I can't think of a more terrible situation to be in. In short, this is scary Spielberg. It's not the same thing as his "Jurassic Park" style frights. This is a Spielberg Horror movie.

Unfortunately, he can't resist tacking on a warm and fuzzy ending. He chooses to focus on the bright happy reunion of a family after he just laid waste to much of the human race. Some reflection on the scale of what has just occurred seems warranted. Instead, we get hugs and kisses. It's the reason the movie falls from Excellent to just Very Good for me.

Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning don the well-worn masks of dysfunctional family members who rediscover one other against the backdrop of an apocalyptic, world-shaping event. Oddly, many of the events surrounding the central theme of alien invasion take a back seat to the broken family's constant bickering. Even the plot device that ultimately drives the invading forces from the planet's surface is left to a tacked-on bit of Morgan Freeman narration to explain, which gives the impression that it's more important to see three random individuals arrive safely in Boston than it is to ensure the survival of the human race at large. Or perhaps the filmmakers just assumed that everyone was already familiar with the developments in the original tale and chose not to overdo it with a straightforward rehash.

Either way, the tighter focus actually manages to deliver a greater perspective of the day's events and allow for a quieter, more suspenseful overall vibe. Unfortunately, it also misses badly at conveying any sense of a greater arching plot structure. With the benefit of hindsight, many of the film's special effects don't look particularly good, but an impressive display of sound design does go a long way toward redeeming such failings. It's not what the original was, but that isn't what it's trying to be - for better or for worse.

Having heard of this movie all my life I have finally decided to watch it and to be honest...a bit of a let down.

Can it be entertaining and visually impressive? I would say yes, even though the CGI is starting to show its years.

Is the main idea of the movie good? Absolutely, I love a good old alien invasion movie, man they don't make them as much these days unfortunately.

Now, for the big question : does the plot make ANY sense, most of the time? I'm afraid it doesn't.
I found the general behaviour of people very illogical, like the very first scene of an alien coming up from the ground. A damn church is getting demolished by something coming out of the ground and you are just standing near by and watching? I would Usain Bolt the shit out of there.

Also, wtf where the aliens doing? First they were just vaporizing people, then the started abducting them and apparently drinking blood out of them, then we see that they actually just trap people in cages and absorb them later, and then all of a sudden they die.

The movie started with a dude saying yeeeh the aliens are plotting in the dark we will not see it coming but honestly that might have been the most inefficient attack in the history of attacks. The only smart move was making all technology useless initially, but that apparently wasn't a problem anymore when one (1) car got fixed for the protagonist, or when the army needed to fight back.

At first the intent seemed to be simple genocide, why not bomb the shit out of the cities instantly then? Instead they go around on big squids vaporizing humans ONE BY ONE, yeah that must be fast.

Then you see them drinking people and you say ok I guess they need humans for some sort of purpose, maybe they feed off of us? But then why vaporize those people earlier, were they not...tasty?

I get that the threat has to be "escapeable", otherwise the protagonist just gets nuked/killed/eaten in the first second of the movie and the credits roll. I just didn't find logical how it was handled for the most part.

Also, both kids are insufferable as characters, Jesus.

It’s pretty funny watching this after so many years. I watch movies so often that sometimes I pick up on what does and doesn’t work for the film. For instance, this is a huge, epically enticing alien invasion story – but the human aspect of it isn’t fully developed. You have a big family just trying to survive, but the depth of their characters is severely lacking, something that is easy to notice when the initiating crisis happens 15 minutes in, and then it’s just non-stop action there on out. Instead, the reason why you care so much for their survival is because one, it’s Tom Cruise, and two – there is a young child involved. In the end, that’s really the two things that keep you specifically caring about their characters. In the long run, if this family didn’t even exist in the film, it would still begin and end exactly the same, making their characters ultimately useless. So, I see this as a general survival movie that needs to focus on…somebody, so they randomly picked this family…not that it ever mattered…and that’s a pretty substantial fault.

The rest of the movie, however, I had no problem with. In its most basic form, this is a very fun, electric movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat. There is always something happening in this movie that, if you’re a first-time watcher, forces your jaw to drop. Truthfully, this is an awe-inspiring visual masterpiece – and I guarantee a big part of that is Steven Spielberg. How many alien invasion movies have we had? How many alien movies has Spielberg made alone? How can you see so many of these movies that present similar concepts and still feel like War of the Worlds is still incredibly original to this day? Is it because of H.G. Wells or is it due to Spielberg’s unique vision when it comes to the spectacular? It may be a mixture of both, but no matter how much the human aspect is lacking, I can’t deny how wonderful the movie is apart from that.

I can’t tell you that this is my favorite Tom Cruise movie, even after all his great running sequences. His character is just too entirely pointless in the big picture. He plays a great dad, and as much as alien invasions bring families together, I think the elements that you’ll remember the most from the film is simply the edge-of-your-seat destruction, mayhem, and altogether suspenseful scenes that never give up…which just means it’s a fun movie without any real soul…and that’s okay.

This is a terrific movie that successfully relays an alien invasion on a massive scale, yet keeps it personal by following the horrors experienced by a single family. There have been more likeable families portrayed in the Movies, but Cruise and company manage to make you care about the terrible things happening around them.

This is an intense ninety minutes. There really isn't any gore, but the aliens are so merciless in their attack that things get very disturbing. The fact that they are using humans as fertilizer to "grow" their own planet makes the aliens really scary. This isn't a plotting and planning alien race, its a force that needs an ingredient for dinner.

People are running everywhere. They are fighting among themselves. There is no doubt that this is an accurate portrayal of what would occur under such terrifying circumstances. Even when offered a helping hand by Tim Robbins's character, Cruise is ultimately faced with a psychopath. It's just one more excruciating challenge for him to deal with in a movie filled with plenty of them.

The alien tripods are incredibly ominous. The way that they step over the landscape is nothing short of horrible. You talk about Hell-on-Earth, I can't think of a more terrible situation to be in. In short, this is a scary Spielberg. It's not the same thing as his "Jurassic Park" style frights. This is a Spielberg Horror movie.

Unfortunately, he can't resist tacking on a warm and fuzzy ending. He chooses to focus on the bright, happy reunion of a family after he just laid waste to much of the human race. Some reflection on the scale of what has just occurred is warranted. Instead we get hugs and kisses. It's the reason the movie falls from Excellent to just Very Good for me.