War of the Worlds Review

by William Robert (webmaster AT moviesforguys DOT com)
June 28th, 2005

War of the Worlds (2005)

Rated: PG-13

Runtime: 117 mins

Starring: Tom Cruise, Miranda Otto, Dakota Fanning, Justin Chatwin, Tim Robbins

Rating: 3/5

Reviewed by Billy Bob Goldstein from www.moviesforguys.com

War of the Worlds brings Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg together again for another summer blockbuster. This time they've revised and retold the H.G. Wells classic using state of the art special effects. And if the movie were 100 minutes long it would've probably received 5 stars from us, unfortunately it is 117 minutes long.

Let's get right to it, you're all wondering just how good the effects were. Words like "jaw dropping" come to mind for many of the scenes. And more importantly, Spielberg was really creative with the visuals and didn't just rely on cool aliens, spacecrafts and battles.

The story is hopefully familiar to most. Aliens have come to earth, and they want to take over our planet. Their first order of business is exterminate all of the humans. This has been done before in movies like Independence Day. However this time, instead of just cheesy dialogue, the effects are accompanied by a strong performance from Cruise. And from the moment the alien craft start to appear, I cant remember a movie we've seen recently that rivals War of the Worlds in intensity.

So what's wrong with it you ask? One is Dakota Fanning. Why oh why cant we have some smoking hottie instead of a 10 year old girl with a squeal that triggers the "smack" reflex in the base of our spines? Father daughter drama isn't what we like mixed into our Sci-Fi. It's like having "rum and pepsi", it just isn't right. The other problem is the end of the movie. No spoilers so I cant say much, and I'm not talking about the resolution of the story but rather the outcome for the major characters. The ending is one that will make most people go "oh, come on!".
Thanks to the "wtf" ending, we're giving War of the Worlds 3 stars. Yes, the ending was that bad. We left the theater ticked off about the ending rather than marveling at the effects and intensity level. If you're a SciFi fan or just like seeing bigtime effects though, you'll still wanna catch this one on the big screen. If you miss it, there's little doubt that this is going to be a must-own DVD that will have the ability to really push your home theater system to it's limits.

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