War of the Worlds – Half a classic?

Ray Ferrier is a working class man living in New Jersey. He’s estranged from his family, his life isn’t in order, and he’s too caught up with himself. But the unthinkable and, ultimately, the unexpected happens to him in an extraordinary sense. His small town life is shaken violently by the arrival of destructive intruders: Aliens which have come en masse to destroy Earth. As they plow through the country in a wave of mass destruction and violence, Ray must come to the defense of his children. As the world must fend for itself by a new and very advanced enemy not of this world, it’s inhabitants must save humanity from a far greater force that threatens to destroy it.

** CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS **

This was *almost* a great movie, I mean really really great, a classic, for the first 2 acts, the first half it was gripping, emotional, scary, involving and just great to watch (Especially on a THX screen!)..

There was another War of the Worlds made in 1953[/url], which although not totally faithful to the book was better than this one, especially for it’s time it was definately one of the best Sci-Fi movies made….BTW the grandparents at the end, they are the original actor and actress from the 1953 movie.

Speilberg has the power to make any movie he want and he comes out with this pap.

The movie seems to almost grind to a halt and change tone half way through…The special effects stopped pretty much, and 1/4 of the movie was wasted in a freaking basement, where I almost fell asleep, then after that it was just the most horribly sickeningly syphillitic cheese dick ending.

It was almost like they ran out of budget..

Tom Cruise played the first half pretty well, as it suits him and his 2 expressions (Shock, and Gormless Shock)..he is well experienced in playing expressionless assholes..And he just spent all his time running..which he seems to do pretty well.

The special effects were mind blowing, they were so realistic, especially with the THX system shaking my bones, I actually felt scared during the first half, which is pretty rare, that’s how atmoshpheric it was and how well directed it was…truly chilling..

Then they got the basement scene, from then onwards the movie went downhill fast..Even the cellar scene with the alien probing lacked suspense and has totally been done better before. Tom Cruise became the hero type, which he isn’t supposed to be in this movie..

There was a lacking plot, a huge dollop of prime cheese sauce at the end and a lot of stupid shit that didn’t even make sense..

Like:

Why after the EMP kinda lightning thing, did that guys camcorder still work?

Why after the huge devastation and multiple plane crashes there was still a neat lane for Cruise to drive out of in his undamaged MPV?

Why were the force fields off? Because the aliens were ill, they just like switched off?

Why can the super high-tech robot probe thing not detect people whispering a few feet away but seems to notice everything else?

The burning train did rock my socks though..

There is a lot of character development at the beginning…but then it just stops too, you end up not really caring for the characters..

Plus the ending just dribbled away like a bout of mild diarrhea going down the drain, the aliens just caught a cold and died, how nice..

Why did he still have to be alive? That just was just TOO CHEESY, and the grandparents, in the untouched street with make-up and coiffured hair? WTF?!

It was kind of a roller-coaster for me though, I was expecting it to be bad, then it started out, I was like OMG THIS IS AWESOME, then it turned to shit after the cellar scene. *yawn*

It’s pretty hard, I mean nigh-on impossible to stick faithfully to the legendary book by Orson Wells, but still it could have been a GREAT movie.

Overall hard to rate….it’s worth watching, but once they get to the cellar feel free to leave as it’s just crap.

The first half would be an AWESOME 9/10
The second half would be absolute BABOON TURD 2/10

So overall something like 5/10

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18 Responses to War of the Worlds – Half a classic?

  1. suanie July 6, 2005 at 2:50 am #

    lucky i sien to see tom cruise oredi.. if not i chop ur nuts off for not calling me! AGAIN!

  2. Mercurial July 6, 2005 at 3:32 am #

    Mate, I went to work and the girls were talking about Tom Cruise. I went back home, put my feet up, switched on the telly and there’s Tom Cruise jumping up and down like a loony. I switched on the radio and the DeeJay’s raving on about Tom Cruise. I peeked at Suanie’s site and, guess what, Tom Cruise.

    ENARF about the shortarse already la.

    …I feel a rant coming on…

  3. heavenly's blog July 6, 2005 at 3:50 am #

    Finally, the famous “War of the Worlds”. Can’t remember much of it’s story, except some mild memories of squid looking monsters terrorizing streets of some city … I think I’ve watched the cartoon version of it when I was a…

  4. Zena July 6, 2005 at 5:02 am #

    I just caught the movie last night, and you’re right, the 1st half was freaky shit scary, i actually had my hands over my eyes at some point… the ending, left much to be desired though, i was like, “wtf… that’s IT?!” and yeah, the ex-wife and the grandparents looked like they had a force-field around their street, so clean… and looks like they managed to take in a shower or two throughout the whole extermination process.

  5. archangel July 6, 2005 at 5:05 am #

    well i haven’t saw the movie yet.. but still i will drop by cinema just for the sake of filling my weekend time.. .. or any of u guys have a plan that i can tag along…. 😀

  6. cccp July 6, 2005 at 9:32 am #

    is that true? the one where you mentioned the grandparents are the actor and actress of the 1953 movie? 😉

  7. ShaolinTiger July 6, 2005 at 12:12 pm #

    Check the cast listings on IMDB. I deal not in mistruths 😛

  8. Curtis G. (aka Su Ku Kia) July 6, 2005 at 12:52 pm #

    Dude, H.G. Wells wrote the original. Orson Welles did the radio production in 1939. And if you haven’t seen “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension,” you should. It tells what *really* happened at Grover’s Mill in 1939.

  9. simmie July 6, 2005 at 1:42 pm #

    Isn’t it weird that after the aliens attacked the area where the ex-wife lived and the van still worked? Oh yeah, the reporter’s van? Doesn’t make sense.

  10. ShaolinTiger July 6, 2005 at 9:43 pm #

    Ah yeah you’re right, sorry my bad.

    Hmm sounds interesting for sure 😉

  11. Delevia July 6, 2005 at 11:57 pm #

    It’s funny, by the end I wished everyone else would just DIE. It got really borung after he went and blew up the tripod.

  12. Intensecure July 7, 2005 at 3:12 am #

    Brits are not allowed to say “my bad”, unless they have been assimilated by the Lucas/Spielberg 21st Century Media Control Experiment.
    Which is just my way of agreeing with the comments above re. HG Wells writing the book, and the scary tendency for people to associate movies based on classic novels with the director, or previous film productions if it is a remake.
    Culture for the under thirties is being shaped this way more and more, and so having to call a film “Shakespeares Romeo And Juliet” merely highlights the inadequacies of the educational system, and the inability of parents to give cultural meaning to their own knowledge in the face of sociological pressures.
    Selah. Res ipsa loquitor.

  13. ShaolinTiger July 7, 2005 at 3:35 am #

    Call it satire or something, at least then I can sound half intelligent..

    I agree with what you are saying, but at least I confused the author with a 1930’s radio producer, and they do have similar surnames, not something worse..

    Education is becoming shallow and results based, not knowledge based, the whole system is tailored to churn out automatons, not thinkers..

    But that’s a whole other rant 😉

  14. ShaolinTiger July 7, 2005 at 3:37 am #

    That part was really TV movie style aswell, how they managed to pull him back down, but he managed to get the grenades inside, then the thing blew up and the baskets fell down and no one was hurt..

    It’s like I mentioned you felt no connection with the characters, they stopped ‘growing’

  15. Dabido (Teflon) July 7, 2005 at 4:26 am #

    News just in – Baboons storm Speilbergs home in protest. Claim their turd much better than second half of War of the Worlds movie!

  16. Phil July 7, 2005 at 8:51 am #

    On the mark on this one! Only saving grace for me was the beginning mainly because I live right near where Tom’s character lived. It was such a joy to see the dirty trailer trash go down in a blaze of glory! And one other note: Ever try to pull a gernade pin out? No? Well lets say doing the old John Wayne teeth pull and throw is all hollywood magic. It does really work like that, another holloywood myth dont try it.

  17. Delevia July 7, 2005 at 11:37 am #

    Oops. I spelt boring wrong. But, yes – Hollywood style. Spielberg-ian style, where none of the main characters get killed. How awesome would it be if the grenade blew his head off instead?

 
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