La guerre des mondes

Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) is a divorced father with daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and angry teenager Robbie (Justin Chatwin). Then a strange storm appears with numerous intense lightning. Suddenly machines rise out of the ground to destroy mankind.

Director Steven Spielberg uses all his tech skills to create great CGI of this H.G. Wells vision. It looks great. There are great individual scenes like the train. Tom Cruise is good as a father looking out for his family. But a couple of things keep coming back to nag at me. The kids are a bit too much to take. I'm willing to take Dakota Fanning screaming at everything, but I can't take the annoying rebellious teen. The constant fighting with the father is so petty and so childish. The family melodrama just diminishes the scale of the movie. Then there is the change of the origins of the alien machines. It is simply a stupid idea from Spielberg to be different. There is no reason for it. Worst it makes the movie questionable. And the blood idea just adds to the silliness of the story. These are changes for the sake of changing without improving anything.

This movie had huge potential. Everything to make this a science-fiction classic masterpiece were present; Spielberg's directing, a great concept, ILM special effects, Tom Cruise as the main character and lots of other professionals involved both in front and behind the cameras. Then where did it go wrong? The answer to that is the script. The story is very simple and lacks a real clear plot line. Basically the movie is only about Tom Cruise and his two children running and driving from city to city, from the aliens and their destructive Tripod-machines. Exactly why are we, out of all the people, following these persons? The character development is lacking, just as much as the story does. Both lack development and depth.

Of course the movie is by no means an horrible movie but it's just that the movie is a bit disappointing because of the fact that it had so much more potential. It still is a good and certainly spectacular movie to watch but it's not a movie people will still talk about in 5 or 10 years from now. The story makes this movie a bit of an easily forgettable movie that doesn't leave an huge impression afterward, even though the movie itself is pure eye-candy to watch.

There is no doubt about it that Spielberg is a great director. He directs his actors in this movie very well and everyone in the movie gives an amazing performance, especially Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. Tom Cruise for once again doesn't play the action hero. He is an average Joe instead and I think he did this in a very good and convincing. Spielberg also uses the special effects very well. He doesn't use the special effects to impress the audience as much as possible, with lots of spectacular and action filled sequences, which he could had easily had done, he uses them as a tool to tell the story with instead. The movie is purely told from Tom Cruise and his family's perspective, because of this the movie gets a very realistic feeling. We don't get to see any close-ups of the Tripods and how they destroy entire cities and fight off the American army. I like this approach. It makes "War of the Worlds" different from many other alien-invasion movies. It because of this certainly is one of the most believable and realistic alien-invasion movies, along with "Signs".

Visually there also is absolutely nothing wrong with this movie. The special effects from ILM are very impressive and look extremely convincing. The cinematography by Janusz Kaminski is also simply phenomenal at times and is typically gritty, which certainly adds to the tense and realistic atmosphere of the movie.

Unlike others, to me the ending didn't came really abrupt. But perhaps this was because to me the ending was already spoiled, thanks to the movie it's soundtrack, which featured the final narration of Morgan Freeman explaining how the movie ended. So I already knew what to expect. To be perfectly honest I liked the ending and I couldn't think of any other, or better way to end this movie, without losing any of its realism and credibility. I can understand how it might seem lame and sudden to most though but for me it was satisfying enough.

It certainly is a movie that will receive one or two, most likely, technical Acedemy Awards. And it deserves to. There isn't an awful lot wrong with this movie but it truly is the simple story that prevents this movie from being a classic or masterpiece. I still regard this movie as one of the must sees of 2005 simply because of the movie its look and acting. You can tell by watching this movie that there was lots of talent involved, both in front and behind the cameras. Especially Spielberg's touch still makes this movie better than just the average alien-invasion movie but still not even he can prevent this movie from being a bit of a disappointment. Not his or anybody else his/her fault, simply blame it on the script.

7/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

"War of the Worlds" is Steven Spielberg's third movie in which extraterrestrials visit Earth, but the first in which their intentions are malevolent. It can't be coincidence that the arrival of the ETs is heralded with eerie lights flashing amid lowering clouds, as in "CE3K." From there, the similarity ends--no light show as friendly aliens come in for a closer look. These creatures (presumably Martians, as in the original H.G. Wells novel) aren't interested in making nice; nor is there any ambiguity about their ultimate objective (as there was for much of "CE3K"). They're here to wipe us off the face of the planet, plain and simple, a point we understand before the movie has played for even half an hour, and the giant walking tripods they deploy are remorselessly efficient. So, too, is the movie--at scaring the hell out of us, notwithstanding some gaping plot holes (what's up with that camcorder, anyway?) and a couple of sequences that are too reminiscent of other movies (particularly "Independence Day" and Spielberg's own "Jurassic Park").

That Spielberg uses imagery alluding to 9/11, the Holocaust, and perhaps the siege of London during World War II is, for me, less an exploitation than a reflection of how seriously he intends the audience to take the on screen mayhem. The atmosphere is heavy with threat, and the depiction of a populace numb with shock amid the devastation is chillingly convincing, despite a few moments of Hollywood cheese. We don't have Will Smith delivering snappy one-liners right after millions are massacred by the invading alien forces, a la "ID4." Nor is there much of a rah-rah, let's-kick-some-alien-ass mood as the outmatched Earthlings try fighting back. Even the ostensible protagonist (a low-key, effective Tom Cruise) crumples at one point under the enormity of what's happening.

I'm not really sure what the posters who complained of insufficient action and FX were talking about. Seems to me the tripods were pretty much a constant presence (if not always in the foreground) from about the 15-minute mark onward. And in fact the "war" of the title is waged from the beginning--it's just not on the level of humans vs. aliens combat that some viewers apparently were expecting.

I love the book and overall theme of the movie but Tom Cruise acting is annoying which is probably because he had to work with 2 most annoying kid actors ever seen on the film. I mean almost every scene is ruined by hysterical yelling of the 3 main characters. Little girl is the worst but Tom and his movie son are not far behind.

I mean it's watchable but by the middle of the movie I was hoping aliens will take them down so we don't have to suffer this atrocity of acting

'War of the Worlds' had a lot going for it, considering the story, that it was directed by Steven Spielberg and a decent cast on paper. It turned however to be a frustratingly uneven film, with a good first half and a pretty lousy second half.

Starting with what's good, the film looks fabulous, the atmosphere that the cinematography and lighting evoked is just incredible and the special effects are without complaint too. John Williams can be relied upon to compose a good score and he does here, being both rousing and spooky. Spielberg does an impeccable job directing the first half of the film, giving a lot of the first half thrills, suspense and genuine scares.

Tom Cruise does a good job in the lead and Tim Robbins is eerily eccentric. As said, the first half has many great moments and is filled with unnerving suspense and scary chills. Truly imaginative details like the burning train, the birds/tripod scene and the river of the dead bodies burn in the memory for a long while after.

However, the human drama was not as transfixing as it should have been, being hurt by the dysfunctional family subplot being rammed down the throat with no subtlety at all with nothing relatable at all and especially by the kids.

Spielberg has demonstrated before that he is capable of directing great child performances, prime examples being Haley Joel Osment in 'AI' and Christian Bale in 'Empire of the Sun', but the performances of both Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin are incredibly irritating. Not sure which is more so, Fanning's constant screaming or brattiness or Chatwin made to act throughout the film but especially the second half like an indecisively written character who makes stupid decisions and acts rebellious in the most insufferable of ways. The dialogue is often insipid.

After a lot of promise in the first half, 'War of the Worlds' is let down significantly by the second half where the pace slackens (a notable example being that overlong scene in the basement) and the suspense dramatically wilts (such as when the aliens are introduced, and they are not menacing in the slightest) and is replaced by ridiculousness, frustrating character decisions and sentimentality. The Hollywood schmaltz kicks in and keeps assaulting the viewer at full throttle, while the ending is up there as one of film's most false, cloying and anti-climactic.

In conclusion, a frustratingly uneven film that starts off quite well and then completely falls apart. 5/10 Bethany Cox