War of the Worlds (2005)
Starring: Thomas Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins
Directed by: Steven Spielberg (Hook; The Terminal; War Horse)
Synopsis: A crappy dad finds himself in the middle of an alien invasion on dad’s weekend, so he has to rush the kids back to their mom through alien-infested areas ASAP or face a stiff child support penalty.
Best part(s):
Worst part: How the tripods emerge from the ground makes absolutely zero sense. The aliens ride lightning into the ground into the tripods, which have been buried there for who knows how long. Unless these gigantic machines were buried next to the Earth’s core or something, there’s just no conceivable way that no construction crew ever came across one. Plus, having the tripods already buried on Earth means that the aliens would have had to have been on Earth previously, so they would have known about the germs. And why didn’t they take over the planet then?
Best line: Ogilvy: “Not my blood!”
Nudity: As usual, the aliens are completely nude.
Overall: I really don’t know why this movie gets dismissed. I think it’s great. Sure, the above-mentioned “worst part” makes no sense, and the ending is a bit of a dud, but other than that, the action, effects, mood, sets, etc. are all excellent. Maybe it’s the characters that turn people off, which I can totally see. Ray’s a deadbeat, and his kids are extremely annoying. His young daughter screams constantly, and his teenage son is a jagoff who keeps giving his dad grief even though they’re in the middle of the biggest tragedy ever. Cut him a little slack, dingleberry. And his intense desire to fight the aliens himself (how, exactly?) is just dumb. So really, everyone in this is unlikable. Mr. Spielberg, it’s ok to make a movie with a good dad in it. He can’t hurt you anymore. But other than crap characters, I totally dig everything else about this. Unlike Pacific Rim, which had crap characters and I didn’t dig the rest of it. If you haven’t seen War of the Worlds I recommend it. If you did see it a few years ago and wrote it off, give it another chance. Just watch your volume when Rachel is onscreen.
Score: 7.5 deadly microbes (out of 10)
Hard Ticket to Home Video 
I liked this movie a lot too except for the whole germs thing. REALLY? That’s about as bad as water in Signs.
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I don’t think anything ever is as bad as water in Signs but yeah, the germs thing is pretty lame. But they were just following the book.
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Good review. I like this entry by Spielberg quite a bit despite the very same things you mentioned. I liked Cruise (His kids were indeed annoying) because he plays a dude who has made some poor choices by his kids and is trying to protect them. I loved the score by William s and the FX and action were amazing. Not as good as Minority Report in my book but this movie had much to like especially Robbins. Good post!
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Thanks! Yeah I’m one of those people who doesn’t mind Tom Cruise. I didn’t touch on Robbins’ character too much but he’s pretty annoying too, but at least in an entertaining way.
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I really liked this film one of my favorites from Speilberg. I like the germ ending it was simple but better than having an Independence Day type ending. Your worst part explanation makes a lot of sense, never did think about it. Nice review.
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Thanks! You’d think the aliens could have at least worn some surgical masks or something.
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Nice. My favorite part was Tim Robbins who lost it in the basement. Totally creepy and believable. I loved it.
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I like the quiet tension in that part, especially after all the explosions and destruction.
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Aliens riding lightning, yeeehaw!! Yeah, those pods things were random. I thought the same thing the first time I saw them. 😛
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If you look closely enough at the alien in the lighting scene the alien is wearing a cowboy hat and giving the devil horns sign.
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Yeah. Back in the old times, aliens were seen wearing suits. Lol. Now, they are stark naked! My, how time has changed. And they have grills too, like ALIEN.
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I thought this was terrible. The way the aliens just stopped all of a sudden really pissed me off.
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It is kind of abrupt from the scene where Tom and his daughter get taken by the tripod to the scene where they’re walking into Boston and the vines and tripods are dying. There should have been an extra 10 minutes in between.
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I hated this movie the first time I saw it, but that was all Dakota Fanning’s fault.
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A great many things were her fault.
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Good to see people sticking up for WoW, it’s vastly underrated, effects, music, VFX/set pieces, characters work ok for me but I totally agree on the point about the buried tripods. That always bothered me too but I guess they were just trying to do something different from the book and 1950s film.
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I can see wanting to do something different other than the same old hovering mothership thing, but it really makes go sense. And how did the tripods even tunnel out of there? I didn’t see any drills on their heads.
Thanks for the comment!
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