War of The Worlds - Steven Spielberg

[Drewbacca]

Spielbergs name doesn't mean anything anymore. Just another cliched mediocre movie i won't see.

The man knows how to tell a good story. It may be old school, but it's still usually good.

[1CCOSA]

What Andrew said. Obviously there's a bit of overhyped "lore" surrounding his name now after all these years but he still makes good films and that's what counts.

One thing I like about WotW is that Cruise's character is just an everyday dockworker with a family. So it seems Spielberg is going back to his "working class character" movies like he used to with Jaws and Close Encounters.

[Grey's Anatomy]

If you can name three of a director's good movies than that man has talent.
Henceforth, Speilberg has talent, and this movie has a reasonable chance.
End o' story.

[avatar]

reviews coming in FROM GERMANY
http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=20477

[Drewbacca]

Should we believe ze Germans?

[EvilMog]

I'm seeing it tomorrow. The reviews have been good so far. See www.rottentomatoes.com

[Revoltor]

reviews coming in FROM GERMANY
http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=20477

Fuck those jew burning motherfuckers.

[ssbomberman]

Anyone else used to watch the WotW TV show with the dude from Predator? That and "V" made for a fun childhood. I want to see this, but I also hope it is dark. I like Speilberg, but he is a mainstream Hollywood director, so I fear that it will follow the Hollywood layout a bit too much. I'm sure Dakota Fanning won't die, it would be cool if she did and Tom and the world was destroyed by Aliens. That would be a good modern adaptation. But you know it's gonna end all happy...even if it is based on the book, I say take liberty and give us a dark, somber film with no happy resolution...

ssb

[Regus]

I just got back from seeing it:

7/10

The movie starts off so fucking strong. I love the concept of humanity's complete impotence in the face of such a threat. The alien ships looked very cool, their weapon was awesome, and that sound they made before they began their slaughter was very, very cool. I felt that the scenes with the people running away from the machines felt very real, and I wondered what I would do in such a situation.

Then it all fell to shit when Tim Robbins had to pop his head into this and drag the whole movie down with his presence. That little speech his gives was so dumb. The entire sequence with them in the basement with him should have been cut out. Robbins single handedly brought the movie down in my eyes.

As for the aliens themselves I thought that they looked alright, but I thought that they would have had more impact if we didn't get to see them until the very end of the film. I didn't feel that having them go down into the basement added much tension. The probe managed to achieve that nicely.

Then there's the ending, I know that they followed through with it just like the original, but it still doesn't change the fact that it's an unsatisfying deus ex machina. I really wish this movie had ended on a sour note. I want to see a movie just like this in which humanity doesn't stand a chance in hell and is eventually wiped out, because if this were to really happen we would never win. The son should not have survived. Plus, I wasn't too keen on the narration that bookened the movie. Maybe it was morgan freeman's stilted delivery that did it (they some other, much better guy read that same opening speech in the trailer, and he sounded much cooler), but having it there felt odd.

My friends hated it, but for other reasons than I listed. They thought the effects were weak, and they hate that Dakota Fanning acts like she's 28 years old in all of her movies.

Oh, an as an interesting aside: if the EMP wiped out all the technology, how did that guy have a working digital video camera during the rise of the first machine?

[Zerohero]

Spoilers at the end of review____________________________________


Quick Mini review of War of the Worlds…..


War of the Worlds really captivated me while watching it. It showed what an average American person/family would do in cause of such an event like an alien invasion. I mostly came out of the theater satisfied. The only thing that bothered me was the ending, but in Hollywood what do you expect I guess?

It pulled me in from the opening titles with a great introduction by Morgan Freeman. Pay close attention to him, and his speech because they have a very big significance in the film. Of course we see Tom’s character and how his life is, where he works etc. The relationship with his children is another excellent point in the movie. Strangely enough, sometimes it takes catastrophic events to bring people together.

I’m not going go into detail about what exactly takes place on screen but it all looks very amazing, terrorizing, threatening and disturbing when you see the tripods. The way they handle and “dispose” of humans should be enough at the beginning of the film to give you the feeling that “ We are all gonna die!”. Just the look on Tom’s face after the event is enough to show that what he saw was unbelievable and that he himself can barely believe he went through such an event.

A few things are left to be interpreted by the viewer such as how the Aliens could not have known about such bacteria on our planet. Basically for some reason we as a people and our society think that aliens in all their superiority can scan and detect anything anywhere at anytime. NOT SO. Yes they are technologically advanced 10 times of what we are but that does not mean that their “scanners” or what ever they would use to do a bacterial search on us, would pick up every single harmful bacteria to them.

This is an example I used on www.imdb.com,

“What makes you think that the technology we have can record and test and find every single micro organism on another plant? Surely could it be possible that one could go undetected because our technology can't do EVERYTHING?? Well the same would apply to the aliens. There was just something they did not detect and could not detect.

Just because they could have and probably did scan our earth doesn't mean they would find every single micro organism that could possibly harm them.”

So in my opinion this is a just means for a conclusion to the bacteria theory.

Minor spoiler
Now how they lost their shields is hard to explain. One could possibly say that since they where dieing in the ship they lost control over certain functions etc.

Few Spoilers ------------------------------------------------------------
Now the only thing that really bothered me was the ending. It was decent but I wanted to have that feeling of devastation. Having Tom’s son come back after we see the dramatic scene of a father letting go of his son is somewhat “hollywoodish” cheese. The ending would have been excellent if the viewer was left with a sense of lose but what they get is a fluffy ending.

I think the movie should have played out either two ways. One, his son is dead, he saves his daughter, her fiancé is dead, and now he might have a chance to reclaim some of what he has lost over the years. Especially with the bonding he and his daughter had over that period of time. THAT is the fluffiest the movie should have turned out.
Now the 2nd way it could have ended was with his son and his ex wife and husband dead. He plans to start a new life with his daughter who now he has bonded greatly with. Either ending would have worked better in my opinion.
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In the end I really enjoyed this movie and would recommend it to most movie fanatics especially science fiction ones. This is a movie that should not be missed. Excellent story, drama, directing and special effects. Watch the movie as if you personally were experiencing it. It makes the movie even more intense!

8/10