Eyes pop, skin explodes, everybody dead! WAR OF THE WORLDS movie

[Darryl]

up to 5 minutes beofre the end - good (not great) film.
Last five minutes - TOTAL CRAP. Spielberg manages to screw up the whole intense, suspensful feeling the film had with that last shot of the boy.

I heard at lesat five people say 'what a load of crap!' as I left.

[paulvonscott]

Well, that's put me off again!  I haven't watched AI for the same reason.

[Bad Andy]

A million times better than AI, PVS. This didn't leave me wanting to strangle the screen.

The horror bits are done oh so very well. My girlf was terrified and to be fair I was pretty scared. For the first time ever I found myself talking to a character onscreen. I was telling Tim Robbins 'don't' when he was thinking of axing the probe (although it didn't seem to do Cruise any harm).

In a wat Hollywood should be applauded for staying faithful to the story after all, they kept the most anti-climatic ending in the history of the film industry.

By no means perfect, but still very enjoyable.

[Bico]

Jeeeeeesus!  I forgot all about the trailer for Willy Wonka!  God knows how - that looks like the most appalling, soulless piece of crap I've ever laid eyes on.  Charmless, to say the least, having the words "directed by Tim Burton" didn't help my perceptions any, either.

I liked the Red Weed set because of the red/green/blue colour scheme - one of the only moments in the film where it looked like we were looking at something genuinely alien.
Now I'm thinking of Willy Wonka, I actually don't think War of the Worlds was that bad in retrospect - although if I was in Tom Cruise's position when the little girl started screaming, I'd have slaped the teeth out of her head.

[Bad Andy]

Just found Orson Welles' radio version on the second disc of my Citizen Kane DVD.

It's very effective, if slightly dull.

Only half way through lisetning to it, so don't know yet if it was true to the original ending.

[Quirkafleeg]

There was a piece in yesterday's Guardian that claims this is the first anti-Bush movie...

[Byron Virgo]

...even though it's a load of bandy old cack?

And what about the recent tidal wave of anti-Bush/Republican/Neo-Con/Fox News films that have appeared over the last few years?

[House of Usher]

"There was a piece in yesterday's Guardian that claims this is the first anti-Bush movie..."

Can you give us any more to go on than that, Gary? My own reading of it was that it confirmed that Americans have every reason to be afraid ('they're already here'), and there was a strong undercurrent of 'if only there was some way we could fight back'. If there were anti-Bush overtones, I don't think they were particularly overt.

[Tu-plang]

POSSIBLE

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I liked this...  The first decent Spielberg in quite some time, actually it felt like Spielberg from the 80s.  Dakota Fanning was good, Robbins was good, and being an annoying little git really worked for Cruise here.

Spoilt by: the ending.  As if that kid is still alive and made it home before them?!  Who would care anyway?  Oh, and the Morgan Freeman (?) voiceover didn't really work.

[paulvonscott]

Finally seen it.

Nyyurggh... okay, I guess.  All of this is going to sound rather begrudging I'm afraid.

No problems with the modern setting, or the story changes, I even quite liked some of the spin on the old story.  

Tom Cruise isn't as bad as he could be.  I can't help but feel someone else would have done the job a lot better, but he did play a character and not just movie star tom cruise all the time.  I'm not a fan, so he actually rates a slight positive here.

I really liked what the movie was trying to do.  Just show the experiences of this guy as he fled the aliens, rather than tell some convoluted story.  I liked the attempt at realism (in some places more than others), and it's darkness in places.  It's attempt to show how people behave in disasters was either brave or very cannily calculated, but I approve anyway.

I wasn't expecting to enjoy the film much, but I was expecting to goggle at the aliens and effects.  Well, some of the tripod stuff worked, loved the legs, and the eyes.  Plus the heat ray was interesting.  Wasn't really that convinced by the, or the lightening.  And the aliens themselves, were pants, the baby-faced grey gits.

Can anyone else explain why Cruise had to kill a man for mumbling, while he got his daughter to err... sing while he did it.  I thought there was somethign quite perverted about this murder, and it made me feel sick.

The son should have just died, and we should have seen it.  Or he should have buggered off in a way we could believe that he might have survived. It's just prime speilbergian cheese I'm afraid.  I don't begrudge a bit of emotion at the end with the reunion, I expect it, even look forward to it.  But speilberg always does it in such a way that suddenly feel I want to be the man who starts world war three and destroys all humanity.  I thought this was over the top but still restrained by Speilbergs standards, so again... I should be grateful.

It was, overall, quite an average movie.  It's a long way from awful, and a long way from great.

[Generally Contrary]

Really, my thought was that the son should have died, and yet, even with that, the ending could have been happy - he managed to save his daughter against all the odds.

I thought that the first part of the movie was great - up until the lad went over the hill with the army.  After that things were a bit hit and miss - average sci-fi movie.

[Pyroxian]

All the bits with Tripods in rocked.

All the other bits didn't.

   Steve

[archangel 1]

Hey there tiddlypeeps,if any of u were impressed with speilbergs latest pile of fetid monkey bollocks,then get this.....r u ready? then here it comes......jeff wayne IS going to animate his definitive version of the war of the worlds,if any of u remember final fantasy spirits within,it's going to be done along the same lines,but in victorian england!!how's about that for thrill huh?

[Generally Contrary]

That does sound pretty thrill.

[Art]

Anyone seen the period version yet?