The war of the worlds

adonis

has anyone seen this? im sure you all have...
wow HG Wells will be spinning like a top in his grave if he saw this stuff! its absolutely ridiculous.. The story line involves tom cruise avoiding skyscraper destroying laser beams while running down a street. He then escapes in the only working car in the world up a highway where his son dissapears over a mound of dirt to fight the aliens...tom is left with his daughter. He then returns to his wife's city (boston) which has been untouched by these earth wide electromagnetic storms.
Interspersed in this movie are the typical tom cruise scenes - running down a road with his chest out, losing the cool and then acting remorseful, speeches about being strong blah blah...
tom cruise has potential, this film doesnt.
0/10
dont waste any of your life on this movie

TerrorFirmer

In contrast I thought it was great. Sometimes I think people expect too much from too little - what did you expect from a Summer blockbuster starring Tom Cruise? I know I got exactly what I banked on...

Creature

I thought it was good. Like Havok said you get exactly what you expect from a Steven Speilberg film with Tom Cruise and aliens with disintegration beams. Although it did annoy me when

his kid returned after being left on the battlefield with the military fighting the aliens

wtf was that about.

adonis

i dont mind blockbusters, in fact i quite like some of them..im looking forward to die hard and spiderman3. i also liked the xmen franchise.
but this was unbelievable, i heard it was good from a few people but i cant pick out one good point about the film barring the credits at the end.!
the whole story was abysmal. unless i missed something..how come his car was the only car that worked? the list is endless really

Tostao*

i have to agree, i saw it in america when it was released and they even thought it was crap, everything from the kids to the way the stupid alien things die is retarded, i absolutely hated it. cant wait for die hard though, they are always guaranteed to bring in ratings on a thurs night for rte for example,nearly 20 years later...class

Adyx

Its not that dissimilar to the book actually. Obviously names and places are changed and there's kids in it but the basic idea is the same. They could have done better than Cruise but at least he wasn't some "All-American Action Hero" who saves the planet single-handedly. Better than the 50's version with its stupid hovering alien ship thingies.

Kashkai

The movie was so so. Some great special effects such as the disintegration of people, the attack of the tripods on the ferry and the clothes of the "disintegrated" raining down from the sky.

However the scene that bugged the sh!t out of me was the "big" battle scene where the US military were holding the hill to let the refugees escape. Cruise's son (who deserved a good ass kicking for his whinging moany persona) wanted to see the battle and promptly disappears over the hill. The film then cuts to a few burning vehicles returning over the hill with no sign of survivors. Not only do we not see the battle, soldiers dying valiantly etc etc but then the son turns up without a scratch in Boston at the end of the film.

Cruise also has to have his "hero" moment where he has some hand grenades (convieniently discovered in a wrecked army vehicle) which he uses to blow up a tripod.

As for how he had the only working car, this was because the garage across the road from him had just installed a new alternator into the car after the EMP storm had fried every other car's alternator.

Overall this film could have been so much better with more detailed battle scenes and of course someone else in the lead role, Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix or even Bruce Willis. They would have been better able to pull off the "I've had the sh!t scred out of me" scenes better than pretty boy Cruise who's the most overrated actor in Hollywood.

Oh and Dakota Fanning was the only believable actor in the whole film. This kid will go places unless she does a Macauley Culkin.

constitutionus

i thought it was alright, well enough to buy the DVD anyway, and they got alot of fairly disturbing stuff in a 12s film. the bit at the river with all the corpses floating down was classic horror.

one things that bothering me though. anyone know what happend to the brit version that was meant to be a direct translation of the book set in the 1800s england with the thunderchild et al? i remember the two were going head to head in production and thought the reason speilberg rushed the film so much was to beat it to an opening. seems the thing fell off the edge of the planet which is a pity because i read the book and theres a shed load neither film touched.

can anyone enlightem me?

Karl Hungus

Can't be arsed taking this thread apart, but seeing as it's descended into more of a discussion about the film, it no longer belongs in Reviews.

one things that bothering me though. anyone know what happend to the brit version that was meant to be a direct translation of the book set in the 1800s england with the thunderchild et al? i remember the two were going head to head in production and thought the reason speilberg rushed the film so much was to beat it to an opening. seems the thing fell off the edge of the planet which is a pity because i read the book and theres a shed load neither film touched.

can anyone enlightem me?

This one? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449040/

Straight to video, it seems. And a none to good score either.

Actually, it seems there was another straight to video one also: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425638/

BlitzKrieg

wow HG Wells will be spinning like a top in his grave if he saw this stuff!

Personnally I thought it was the closest any of the War of the Worlds films have got to the original book in spirit.

The original book is taken completely from the perspective of the author and he is but one man bearing witness to a number of the events of the invasion. The film in a similar notion follows purely tom cruise and his experiance of the invasion. I thought this made the film very unique and the closest any of them have gotten to the original book (with scenes being updated versions of their originals including the crazy gunnery soldier) This was made stronger by how Spielerg directed the film. If I had a criticism it would be the ending far too many things wrong with it.

for me the fact that the US army was still operating at the end was the biggest flaw

Karl Hungus

Karl Hungus wrote:

Can't be arsed taking this thread apart, but seeing as it's descended into more of a discussion about the film, it no longer belongs in Reviews.



This one? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449040/

Straight to video, it seems. And a none to good score either.

Actually, it seems there was another straight to video one also: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425638/

The first one you linked to is an Asylum job. They specialise in producing cheap rip offs of big films and releasing them a few weeks before their cinematic incarnations. They did Snakes on a Train and here’s their newest masterpiece. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0960835/

The second one is a Pendragon film and is easily the most boring film I ever saw. I actually believe that it was intended as a documentary on walking till someone decided to Photoshop in some aliens. The film is infamous for Pendragon’s threatened legal action against a number of companies and people. They actually threatened to sue people who bought the DVD and complained about how bad the film was, as well as Dark Horse comics over a comic which was published years before their film.

Neither is really worth watching, though Invasion is on Zone Horror every week or two and it’s the better of them. Worth a look just to C Thomas Howell and Jake Busey doing what they do best, taking the money and running.

TerrorFirmer

Actually the C Thomas Howell one was quite good in my opinion apart from some dreadful CGI. The still motion pictures were excellent, anything with moving tripods looked like something from a 50's sci-fi movie, and that's being kind.

If the special effects had been better it would have been up there with Spielbergs in my opinion.

And lol @ transmorphers. I watched Snakes on a Train (posted a lengthy review on the review section too, but it seems no one else saw it....) so I'll definitely be looking forward to this one.

MisterAnarchy

Thought the film was utter crud.
Annoying kids and I hoped they would get toasted.
Also the bit where Cruise fights Tim Robbins was hilarious,Robbins would break him in two in reality.

spacecoyote

IMO it was almost good. There were some create suspence filled moments & some nice horror scenes for a 12s movie but they just had to wrap it up all too need & tidy & happy, which is just so frustrating!!!

constitutionus

the one i read about in SFX was based in england at the end of the 19th century so i suppose it could be the second one. TBH i think they just shut down production when speilberg got his out first. no one wants to be the second robin hood anymore

pity though , i read the book and theres alot of stuff not coverd in any iteration of the film.

TerrorFirmer

constitutionus wrote:

the one i read about in SFX was based in england at the end of the 19th century so i suppose it could be the second one. TBH i think they just shut down production when speilberg got his out first. no one wants to be the second robin hood anymore

pity though , i read the book and theres alot of stuff not coverd in any iteration of the film.

No, they didn't - it was released, and you can buy it on DVD. The only problem was that they hyped it up to be a blockbuster, when in reality it was a b-movie of the lowest quality. The trailer was better then the movie, it actually had some cool shots...

The actual Spielberg Wotw was the best, followed by the Asylum one, and then the Timothy Hines one trailing far behind....

Enda89

war of the worlds...

there are just no words to describe it. 2/10

and i only give it that due to the simply fantastic scene where Cruise chucks a peanut butter sandwhich and it stick to the window rofl

Elessar

I am absolutely disgusted with Spielberg for making an utter sh*te of what could have been one of the best sci-fi films ever. I mean it almost completely disregards 99% of the book. It didn't even have a battle scene for christ sake. I could have perhaps tolerated it with at least one good, epic battle scene but there was none, NOT ONE.

Lackluster Steven, ****ing lackluster.