It’s amazing how so familiar a story can still pack such a powerful punch. Part of this can be attributed to the perilous times we live in, but credit must be given the filmmakers for crafting an alien invasion movie that feels as if it could actually happen.

Without giving anything way, one of the things I loved about this version of WOTW is the way in which Spielberg manages to convey a sense of overwhelming, unstoppable terror without being obvious or flashy about it. There’s a matter-of-fact, almost “ordinary” feel to the effects which in many cases are kept in the background; huge, earth-shattering events playing out in our peripheral vision.

Some will have issues with Tom Cruise, who brings so much “hero” baggage to the party that at times it’s hard to believe his character is as big a jerk and in as much danger as Spielberg would have us believe. Still, he remains a very watchable actor – and Dakota Fanning is simply amazing (watch for the film’s signature shot in which she reacts to the alien onslaught; it’s the horrific flip-side of Drefuss’ awestruck reaction to the Mothership in “Close Encounters” ).

I know the film has only just opened, but I’ll be anxious to hear what you guys think. Suffice it to say I give WOTW a very enthusiastic thumbs-up.

Word to the wise: this is not a feel-good movie, and I’d think twice before bringing the kids.

Gonna' try to go see this movie tonight - alone.

i cant wait to see that movie .... that all i see on the tv .. lol

Some will have issues with Tom Cruise... at times it’s hard to believe his character is as big a jerk...as Spielberg would have us believe

Oh, that won't be a problem. ;) :D With his current behavior, I figured the hurdle would be trying to find him the least bit sympathetic. Seriously, he's put me off this in a huge way. But it's Spielberg doing War of the Worlds - I can't not see it.

Just got back. I've never read the novel, so can't speak to it's fidelity. Definitely an engaging movie that delivers what it promises. For me it successfully evokes the vibe of the best of the 1950's sci-fi invasion films combined with a post - 9/11 sensibility. The story is a natural for Spielberg's talents and techniques, and certain scenes evoke memories of his previous movies which portray humanity confronting some sort of "other" - Jaws, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters, and E.T. are all there as echoes in this movie. There is one shot early on - it's a special effects shot - but a heartbreakingly human one - that sets the tone for the entire film and it's the kind of shot that only Spielberg could pull off - he has an amazing talent for portraying the common face of humanity in a crowd. Cruise is Cruise - there's no getting around that. Dakota Fanning is wonderful. And Morgan Freeman is the hardest working man in show buisiness.

I thought the movie was frickin awesome. Very suspenseful, awesome special effects. Even Cruise was OK in my book. I was kind of suprised at the ending. I thought they would make it more mushy.

[QUOTE=dreamer(Cruise) has put me off this in a huge way. [/QUOTE]


The more I think about it the more convinced I am Spielberg made the right decision by casting Tom Cruise in the lead. The role calls for a big movie star -- someone with enough charisma to hold our attention in the midst of considerable scene-stealing mayhem.

As with "28 Days Later" (and any number of 50's Invasion movies), the scariest monster in WOTW turns out to be us. It's a timely theme, and one Spielberg uses to maximum effect without being preachy or misanthropic.

Cruise presence provides a subtle reminder that "it's only just a movie," as does John Williams' score. Otherwise this PG-13 end-of-the-world movie might have been too intense for the summer popcorn-movie crowd it's intended for.

It's been over six weeks since I saw "War of the Worlds," and the film has really stayed with me. My previously held suspicion that Spielberg was no longer capable of making a good old-fashioned popcorn movie like "Jaws" or "Close Encounters" has been firmly dispelled.

I thought it was terrific too--a great transplant of the novel (and elements of the Pal movie) to the present day. It was amazing seeing those tripods walk right out of the novel...my only problem was the aliens themselves, way too much like the ones from Independence Day. Other than that it was a home run...

...my only problem was the aliens themselves, way too much like the ones from Independence Day.

This similarity bugged me too -- it's almost as if Spielberg wanted his aliens to resemble the creatures in ID4. Oh well, it's a minor quibble...

Did the sequence with the alien probe in Robbins' basement remind anyone of a sequence from another Spielberg movie?

Perilous times we live in...

Do you REALLY think we live in perilous times? Things have been happening like this for decades now.

Matthew - you are the master of the BB thread non-sequiter.

Did the sequence with the alien probe in Robbins' basement remind anyone of a sequence from another Spielberg movie?

Not sure... are you thinking of the spider-probes from "Minority Report" -- or perhaps the "home invasion" scene from "Close Encounters"?...

Not sure... are you thinking of the spider-probes from "Minority Report" -- or perhaps the "home invasion" scene from "Close Encounters"?...

Reminded me very much of the kitchen scene in "Jurassic Park".

My previously held suspicion that Spielberg was no longer capable of making a good old-fashioned popcorn movie like "Jaws" or "Close Encounters" has been firmly dispelled.

Ya know what, that's good to hear. 'Cause I've had that same suspicion for quite a while. I've compared Spielgerg to Stephen King - both wunderkinds with brilliant early careers, who both seemed to forget how to tell stories well in later years.

We went to see it last night. I have to admit I was a little dissapointed. The first third of the movie was great, but as soon as they went into the basement, I thought the story fell apart. The whole Tim Robbins thing was just odd. As was already said, Cruise is Cruise [which is not necessarily a positive thing] and I thought the children's characters were wooden and unsympathetic. After a while, I didn't care if the aliens got them or not, I just wanted them to shut up. I was also struck by the ID4 aliens that were transplanted into the movie. Also, anyone who has seen Evolution had to be cracking up when Cruise uh, "enters" the war machine.

On the positive side, there were a lot of nice nods to the original film and even a scene that reproduced the cover on the old Classic Comic Book version of the story. The effects were excellent and all in all, it was worth the money, I just wouldn't be as ecstatic about it as others are. It is a good summertime movie, not a great one.

Just saw WotW today.
Overall I liked it, but have to completely agree with the anti-Tom Cruise sentiment. I usually skip Cruise flicks and this one reinforces that. You look at Tom Cruise running from aliens, not a charactor running from aliens.
I was waiting for for Tom Cruise and Tim Robbins to hop into a F-14 and kick some butt (for those who don't remember, Tim was 'Maverick's' second 'rear' after 'Goose' bumped his head).

I definetly think they pulled off the terror caused by the tripods attack
The booming elephant sound they emited was a nice touch.
It made me think it was an intentional 'driving' horn to scare the populace.
I was truly genuinly scared/uneasy, what have you, during each Tripod scene.

There were some problems that I didn't care for and if you haven't seen the movie yet you may not want to read any further.

1.) I didn't care for the tripods coming up from the ground.
To quote Tim Robbins charactor "They must have buried them millions of years ago." I can see how this is the part that people are equating to the 'terrorists among us' thing. But come on, they don't have technological advancements making these machines obsolete?
(Though that scene was damn impressive, and I like it when the ground twisted, making me think of the cap unscrewing from the 50's ship).
Perhaps having spaceships come down so soon after Independence Day was released would have drawn 'they copied ID4' comments.
For ID4 is quite the remake of the 50's version as well.

2.) I did like the fact that these aliens were MUCH more alien, than those in ID4, and in their being so different, we wouldn't really understand what they were up to. But, in their so called 'terraforming' (at least thats how I took it) by spraying the 'blood' and having all that vein like stuff pop up, it seemed as though they needed people as part of that process,.......so why blast everybody in the NY scene.
(If they DIDN'T need people for some reason, why capture and 'process them?)

3.) While the whole virus thing may have worked in the book, radio-broadcast and 50's film. Today I think we know better. We certainly wouldn't go to another planet without thinking about that, so I find it hard to believe that aliens coming here wouldn't take that into consideration as well.
Especially since it seemed as though part of their tripod machines seemed to be organic and that they seemed to use humans as part of some process.

I didn't care for the ending, it was too mushy and Spielberg like. By having the son show up at the end, there was no true sence off loss. He should have stayed dead. And apparenty Grandma and Grandpa's block of Boston was immune from the attack. I wonder if they even knew an attack was going on, or were they just wondering why their cable and hearing-aids stopped working.

In my mind the ending should have gone like this.....
Cruise and kid show up at Grandma and Grandpa's blasted house in Boston finding G & G dead along with new hubby 'Tim'. Cruise and kid determine that mom got it as well and just can't find the body. They eventually do find mom and Ta-da, family togetherness, but mourning the loss of their son bringing the two back together.
Corny ??
Well not as corny as what was depicted on unscathed upper-middle class main street Boston.

Imagine if you will, the best parts this WotW mixed 50/50 with the best parts of ID4, and directed by Ridley Scott. Now theres a movie.

Well, I was blown away by this film. I can see the reasoning behind some of the negative comments, but they really didn't bother me.

The tripods were amazing and scary.

The devastation sequences were gut-wrenching and realistic. I liked the overall sense of confusion. It was played out as though you were in the crowd and clueless sometimes which can be more frightening than having full knowledge.

The red weed was straight from Wells, although the "fertilizer" was somewhat improvised. These things are hinted in the book, but not so gruesomely described. They indeed blasted a certain percentage to create panic and disrupt the society, but I think the vast majority of the population was left alive to be harvested.

I really liked the basement sequence. Combining the artilleryman and the curate from the novel into Robbins' character was a good consolidation move.

Overall I was impressed by how closely they adhered to the novel and by the many homages to the George Pal film. Did everyone catch Ann Robinson and Gene Barry as Mirando Otto's parents? It was a very brief cameo but fun.

There were many things I didn't like about this movie:

1) Why must most divorced dads be clueless about their kids?
I've been divorced for awhile, but guess what? I know a lot about my kids.
I know more about them than my ex. Am I the only dad that takes an
interest in his own kids? Hollywood would have you believe all unmarried
dads are total idiots when it comes to kids. Peanut butter sandwiches?
Give me a break. Why didn't Cruise look in the refrigerator? That house was
unaffected by the attacks.
2) Cruise was lucky to find a van that was virtually indestructible. Alien
attacks and crashlanding jets can't hurt it. Luckily, there wasn't any debris
blocking the van's easy exit.
3) I found it silly that Cruise was driving through a sea of non-working cars.
Why was everyone walking on the grass? Maybe I'm crazy, but if I'm going
to walk a long way, I'd rather walk on the pavement. It's smooth. If you
walk on the grass, you're liable to step into puddles, holes, or (at the very
least) uneven ground where you may twist your ankles.
4) The scene in the house where Cruise fights and then later kills the guy
who saved him. What's up with that? That guy could have shot all four of
the naked aliens. They didn't have any weapons---just their birthday suits.
Why not kill them? I'd pick the shotgun to win over the aliens' foul stench.
5) Cruise tried to keep the alien invasion a secret from his daughter. That
was pretty stupid.
6) It's incredible Cruise's idiot daughter hadn't answered his calls just a few
moments earlier. She screams at the most inappropriate times.
7) The idiot son is no better. He wants to fight the aliens, so what does he
do? Go over a hill and........ I guess we're supposed to imagine he tripped
some of the tripods? Threw rocks at them? Intimidated the aliens with his
tough resolve? I was hoping the alien's anal probe would have shut him up.
8) When the ground starts getting ripped up, why are the people just
standing around looking at it? I imagine most people would start running
THEN.....not after a bunch of buildings start breaking apart. How many
people who ran were smart enough to TURN into a building or alley to
prevent getting shot at? Is the average person that dumb? It reminded me
of cartoons where a barrel comes at a character, and rather than sidestep
it, the character just continues to run in the same direction until the barrel
catches up.
9) When the attacks started, wouldn't most people try to tune in a TV or
radio? I don't think I saw anybody carrying those. This is the 21st century,
isn't it? 7" widscreen portables and small radios abound.
10) If I was running away, I wouldn't run to another city. That's where the
aliens are concentrating their attacks. I would have thought of
taking/looting some camping gear and food to find a place to camp such as
a cave. Would I have been the only one thinking along those lines?
11) At the very end of the film, why didn't the alien tripod have its force
shield on? The military was able to dispatch it in short order. Are we
supposed to believe the aliens were so sick, they accidentally went to the
trouble of turning off their force shield? Hmmm...


Here's what I liked:
1) I liked the look of the spaceships, aliens, and lightningesque
zappy-thingies (teleportation rays?)
2) Cruise's portrayal of a butt plug appears to be a good one for him.
3) I like the way the probe/grabber/whatchamacallit picked up the humans.
4) It was cool watching the needle/stabber/syringe process one us without
showing gore.
5) Not too much foul language. (I wish there would have been none. It was
done in the past. Why have Cruise and his kids talk to each other like
that?)
6) I like the fact the alien zapper only affected us organic
beings.....However, it seemed to me that cotton clothes should have been
affected too.
7) The Orson Wells-like narration. The aliens downfall had to be explained
somehow.
8) I liked hearing the aliens talk amongst themselves. It's too bad they
didn't have subtitles like, "The water in here is putrid. Let's think about
filtering this water before drinking it."
9) I liked seeing the look of amazement as everyone noticed the "clouds"
and curious "lightning" in the sky. The perspective showing the Hellgate
Bridge in the foreground was cool.
10) I liked the alien siren horn too. Communication between the aliens is
always something I like to see. It shows they are intelligent beings. I would
have thought the aliens had some kind of communication device such as a
cell phone. (I guess they'd have to invent clothes, belts, and finally belt
clips first to carry them.)
11) I'm glad the unruly mob took Cruise's van. His dumb kid was silly enough
to try to drive through them. They deserved to get thrown out.
12) I've got to get a van like Cruise. Not only was it practically
invulnerable, but it didn't seem to need gasoline.

Overall I think the movie was entertaining. I didn't feel like I wasted my money. However, this movie was no Batman Begins!

So, based on the lack of hightlightable (is that a word?) text, am I to assume you found nothing to like or dislike? Or am I just missing the point?

The film has major flaws in logic.

What civilization develops so little in a million years that the technology would still be compatible. Or did they journey back in time and deposit the machines? Why not simply arrive today in the very latest death machine rather than relying on last millennium's model?

And why utilize a tripod device rather than a flying machine which would be faster and a harder target?

At the time of the novel, knowledge of science wasn't as wide-spread to the general public. I would argue that the public of today is still woefully ignorant of science, but the idea of germ warfare is at least familiar to the average Joe. So, the premise that a civilization would invade a world without analyzing the dangers in the atmosphere doesn't fly as well today as it did 100 years ago.

After all that, I have to say I still think the film's amazing and those issues don't detract from it for me.

The tripods are inherently scarier than a flying machine. Think about the walkers in TESB. There's something more animalistic about a walking machine.

I can't wait to see this one again. Oh, and Batman too. :)

I have plenty I disliked and liked about the movie. Maybe your browser doesn't work well. You have to CLICK and DRAG over the entire contents of the boxes to highlight what's there.

I liked it. Unlike Last Samauri it was big enough I occasionally forgot I was watching Cruise, though for the most part it felt like watching Tom and Dakota run from the aliens. The special effects, especially the tripods and deathray were outstanding. I didn't buy one of the movies central premises, that people would just naturally assume the tripods were buried millions of years ago, even with the luckiest piece of videotape in journalistic history confirming it. If I had been Cruise or Roberts, I would have assumed the 'pods materialized under ground, or landed in the sea and burrowed underground, or something. But I wouldn't have just assumed they were a million years old unless the screenplay said so.

But nobody does crowd scenes like Spielberg. And the visuals were amazing. It'd be an easy movie to nitpick to death (like the EMP seemed pretty selective) but it moved fast and looked good.

What the hell's wrong with this page??
It was like this earlier too, and I can't find any post that made it stretch.

I think it's Phrank's spoiler box. Annoying tho....

Hmmm...I put carriage returns in my spoiler boxes. I don't know why it didn't word wrap to begin with. Sorry guys.

This thread has lost some weight. Looks much better.

Liked it. Made me forget for a while where I was. The movie was effective despite its faulty logic. I thought it was trying to be as true as could be to HG Wells and still interest today's audience. Chrysler definitely had a starring role.

Cruise was well cast.

Gene Barry and Ann Robinson's cameo was a little spooky. Didn't think they got along well in the last movie. (I guess they did in the movie, it was just Ann Robinson's comments at WF that sunk in; She thought he was a jerk.)

Saw it today. I say WOW! A new twist on an old story. It had the most action of any WOTW movies I have seen. ILM really out did themselves this time. I didn,t even notice John Williams music, the movie was too intense. I really like this movie,alot!

I think Spielberg has done to an alien movie, what he did for shark movie. Scare the hell out of me! The next time I am in a city, and lightning strikes, I am leaving!

I was sitting behind my son and his girlfirend and while the scene was playing with the aliens in the basement, I put my 3 fingers on my sons and his girlfriends neck, both of them came upout of the seats and screamed, MAN IT WAS GREAT! Even the wife liked it!

^^ Evil!!!!lol

I forgot where I was for a while and that is all that matters to me....I liked it!

NOW I WANT TO SEE A NEW "WITE MOUNTAINS" ON THE BIG SCREEN!

That story has screaming tripods in it as well.

GAWD I HATE! MAXED OUT, OVER PRICED MULTI PLEX THEATERS CONNECTED TO A MALL WITH NO PARKING!!!!! :mad:

OK, it has its flaws: the 3rd act with Tim Robbins was a little odd, and in my opinion I felt that the story 'peaked/plateaued' just a bit too early in the movie. Having said that, I thought overall it was absolutely sensational! I was glued to the screen during those incredible storm events, and the rising of the tripods was just SOOOO real... There is no question that it is a must see on the big screen, at least initially. Cheers, Fox.

Tripods. Good series!

Tripods. Good series!

"The White Mountains" was the first actual "book" I read when I was in Jr. High School. The BBC series (or was it Australian?) was pretty cool!

It was BBC. I have the first season on DVD region 2, I bought from Ireland.

Just a quickie,

How long into the movie (minuets wise) does it take until the action starts proper?

I'm going to see it with some mates but might have to be a little late.....

Cheers.

Mike

The storm starts within 15minutes... I think.

Which way is the wind blowing...?

While our South Eastern friends hopefully weather out "Dennis the Menace" without incident, allow me to change the subject a bit and ask a question that I am surprised hasn't been asked yet"

Would you want a kit of one of those havoc wreaking, murderous Tripods? If so what scale?

Cruise did well with what I thought was complete crap. Tripods were ok. Poor editing or screenplay or something. Girl could have screamed a little less often. didn't feel the bond between the characters. m2c.

this movie looks good .. i wonder when it will be on dvd...... the sharlow crew