Really enjoyed it. Much like Jurassic Park, I don't think this movie will be as enjoyable at home.

The movie doesn't really have a story, it's more so an experience. We're pretty much experiencing everything Ray does from beginning to end. The tension and suspense created in the first 100 minutes were really impressive. But the final 20 minutes fell flat. The ending seemed really abrupt and tagged on. At first I was kind of disappointment at the lack of an explanation of things, but thats not what this movie was about. Much like Signs it's more so about the personal experience a single family goes through in such an event. Only in WotW, we're right in the thick of it as opposing to seeing how everything plays out on the countryside.

i'm still not sure about this movie.
i was all excited about it, and then began to see cruise doing the interviews and press tour and got a bit turned off by him.
the previews look good to me...i think spielberg's work in general has been good to date, so if i don't make it to the movie i will definitely see it at some point in the future. who knows..i may be talked into going with my family this weekend since i will be home for the holiday!

What I found interesting about the first half of the movie was that it wasn't played as a heroic quest at all. There wasn't even any thought of striking back, just escape and survival. Ray is lazy, incompetent and freezes up when faced with a crisis. In the latter half, the movie moved right back to generic territory and just became another adolescent male fantasy about taking control, beating the bad guys, Ray is a hero, etc. Spielberg made half an interesting movie but then chickened out and went back to the crowd pleasing garbage.

I didn't find the mentioned scene to be as accomplished as the LOTR scene, or particularly that great (I didn't really care for the strange look of the cells when compared to the cold mechanical design of the rest of the ship) but I loved the reaction of Dakota Fanning that really made you think: ya, that was wierd. I think the biggest problem with that scene was the odd green and purple colours that pervaded it. I also want more destruction becuase the film is called "WAR of the worlds", not "Skirmishes portrayed using strobe lights against Tom Cruise's face" and the scenes in which there was destruction weren't too cool anyways.

Possible Spoilers
And Tim, I like both versions of ray guns, but really enjoyed the scene where Tom looks into a mirror and sees he's covered in ash from the remains of human beings, I found that kinda disturbing. I think a better version may of entailed some actual blood and guts or something, I mean they have blood plants and blood rain, why not blood explosions? Right? That would of made sense too! Cause then the blood could fly through the air and into the ship's receptacles for easy drinking! (Ok, I'm sorta joking...but I'm really not to sure if that might work, Steven would probably have found some way [stifles a laugh and a snort])

Onijay,

I meant I liked Tim Burtons' laser beam as a visual effect more than Spielbergs' evap. laser. I just thought being zapped down to a skeleton looks far more cool. Call me sick, but, oh well. I really wasn't concerned about the explaination of how the weapon works, because in sci-fi, I genreally never have a problem with suspending belief over weapon types. Even Spielbergs' laser idea would take a hell of a lot of explaining, I just didn't think it looked all that interesting.

Tim

Onijay,

Funny that the scene (I won't spoil it here) you mention and ask "Why couldn't the rest of the film have been like that?" was the exact scene that I thought was the worst moment in the film and the point at which the movie went rapidly downhill (actually, it started to fall apart with the whole Tim Robbins scene).

There are about 8 thousand other movies you can watch if you just want to spend 2 hours watching things blow up, aren't there? Why do you want yet another one?

I didn't think War of the Worlds was all that hot but it had me interested through the first half. As usual, Spielberg screws up royally in the end. Has any well-known director ever ended his films so badly on such a consistent basis?

I found this film to be disappointing. Almost like a waste of $140 million. I mean where was the sense of epic grandeur that Steven manages to impart on almost every film he makes? I kept waiting to be wowed, and always felt like I was missing something. I think the perfect example is when the thunderstorm first appears and its blocked from our view at first by the highway so we are missing the action. To me the entire film felt like the best parts were hiding, wanting to come out but just not given the chance. I liked the meticulousness with which Steven showed the fear the family experienced, and I liked how rather than juggling several characters he keeps to one, but that also hurt the film. Rather than experiencing the WAR of the WORLDS we are experiencing (and to put it bluntly: merely watching) the struggle of a family. The chaos of the first half was hardly enough to satisfy me, and the tension of the second act was handled far better with curious raptors in a certain kitchen. The acting was incredible, as were the special effects, but there just wasn't enough to me. Where was the massive action scene that left you awed? SPOILERS AHEAD When Tom cruise blows up the tripod and accomplishes what the entire human race had been unable to do and the harvester crashes to the ground and Dakota stares with wonder at the feat her father accomplished it harkens back to the jubilation you felt when Legolas killed the Oliphant in LOTR 3. Now why couldn't the rest of the film been like that? Not once during this film did I feel like I had emparted on a grand journey with this family that by the time they finally reach the home in Boston and both Tom and Dakota are near exhuastion and collapse do I look back and feel the same exhuastion over the amazing situations they had gone through. Put simply I don't feel they went through enough. I would have liked a 2 1/2 hour movie where the world is actually destroyed around them. Rather I felt the film glossed over the destruction, often using strobes on a person's face to indicate an explosion, over the destruction of an entire city just over the hill. I don't want to simply watch a tripod stamp over a town, I want to be in the thick of it, like Tom is at the very beginning, running through the town while all around him people are turned to dust (an incredible and extemely logical choice, after all, how would you explain people merely turning to bones? Wouldn't the bones disintegrate too?). I wanted more. I basically don't feel there was enough substance to this film, especially seeing what Steven could have really done with it with those amazing effects and giant budget. I basically could not find much to enjoy about this film. It felt like Signs and ID4 mixed together, with not enough of action, and missing too much character. So where are we left? And what are we left with? I leave my comments in the way that the film leaves the viewer: without everything answered, and not mentioning enough, and still wanting more (ok, maybe I'm being a little pretentious in saying people want more of my opinion, but I couldn't think of anything else to write okay?!:@)

Considering the aliens' lasers disintegrated people while leaving their clothes intact, I think it's very clear what the goal of the invasion was:

The aliens want our pants!

I haven't seen the film version, but I could bet that it isn't as effective at scaring the crap outta people as it was with Orson Welles' radio broadcast. The Times They Have A-Changed.

SPOILERS, YADA YADA, SPOILERS!!!

Well, that all depends, my friend. If you go into this film, place your brain at the door and simply accept the fact that Spielberg is just doing his own version of the 1951 classic, then yes, it is a great accomplishment in the “space invaders” genre. However, for someone like myself, I can’t help but to over-analyze the fine details or accept the stretched reality Steven created.

For example, the alien’s crafts have been buried underground for centuries, or possibly millions of years, but in all this time of oil drilling, excavating, water wells and a whole slew of scientists that do underground research, not one alien craft had ever been found. Seems like a pretty big stretch in the believability category, if you ask me. Not to mention, in Spielberg’s world, an EMP blast can take out anything that uses AC or DC electrical current; however, camcorders miraculously survive. Had Steven watched shows like “Myth Busters” he would have learned that it is the components that feed off the camcorders battery that get fried in an EMP blast; therefore, the camcorder is just as dead as anything else that uses power.

Of course, as in all alien invasion films of mass destruction, there is never any rhyme or reason for a species of vast technical intelligence to provide any motive to their chaos. Especially in this film, what was the whole point of the attack and why did they wait so freaking long to do it? And why kill? Why not enslave or make use of the human prey? To me, it’s just too many things that don’t add up and if Spielberg already took the liberty to twist a few things form the original story, then why not throw a few more details about our attackers? Come to think of it, these are pretty much the same questions I had about “Independence Day”, but I will admit I liked Spielberg’s take on it much better. ID was far too cheesy in comparison to WotW. Steven delivers good characterizations and a far darker tale with a good share of thrills and suspense.

The boy running towards the hill of mass fire, we’ve already covered; so let’s not open that chestnut for now.

Of course, there is that sappy Disney ending in the last three minutes (tied into the boy staying alive). The aliens dying of bacteria, I had no problem with because that’s what happened in the 1951 classic and that’s what I loved about it. It is believable and very passable in my opinion, and for that matter, look what aids is doing to humans. What I didn’t care for was that the mother and her family just happened to be in their cozy little home in Boston. I mean, are you freaking kidding me! It looked like the whole town was evacuated with the exception of them. Not only that, it appeared that their neighborhood was barely touched; gee, how Hollywood is that! I would have expected the mother and her new husband to be long dead from the start, and then to find them still alive in an untouched house in Boston, I just couldn’t believe Spielberg ended it that way. The guy should know by now that audiences don’t want sappy, they want it to be believable!

On the bright side, the film does work as summer, popcorn entertainment. I thought the ride was enjoyable enough but I was just disappointed that Steven didn’t deliver something more thought provoking as he successfully did with “Minority Report” or “A.I.”. Oh, well, even Spielberg can’t hit a homerun every time, and honestly, I don’t have a problem accepting that. As I said, the film does work on the merits of entertainment, but it made me leave the theatre feeling as if the glass was only half full.

Tim.