War of the Worlds

Seen on opening night, June 29 2005, at Coral Ridge Mall for the 8:45pm showing, I had been looking forward to seeing this film for a few months despite the Tom Cruise lovefesting about Katie Holmes on the Oprah show right before the release. Yet another remake in a string of such films in recent years, this movie is based on the well-known and beloved H.G. Wells' book written in 1898 of the same name. Apparently, the 1953 movie version starring Gene Barry was used prominently for this remake as well.

War of the Worlds starts off well. Cruise is Ray Ferrier, a divorced father forced into a parental custody visit to watch his 2 kids--Robbie, a rebellious teenager played by Justin Chatwin, and Rachel, an intelligent pre-teen girl played by Dakota Fanning. A few bizarre incidents happen from lightening hitting the same spot repeatedly to all electrical components suddenly taking a hiatus.

From these early stirrings of greatness, the film then slowly deteriorates. Nonsensical logic rears its hideous head where goofs abound from a camcorder working to record the emergence of the tripods out of the rubble to a new solenoid powering a vehicle (guess only objects in electrical appliances were short circuited not those waiting to be put into them) to a car radio functioning along with the incredible ability for Cruise and his flock to survive the odds. Really, there are just too many incredible items to even list all of them here. Finally, the end of the film seals the movie's fate as utterly unbelievable.

Entertaining in essence, the movie earns a good rating for that alone. Some scenes with the tripods were terrifying, and it is too bad the rest of the film couldn't live up to these moments.

Please feel free to comment on this review or on the movie itself at the forum thread devoted to it at this location.