I was very interested to read Ben Lee’s review of this film and was glad he enjoyed it. As when you give a criticism, you are supposed to sandwich it between two compliments, I figured I’d do my best…

The effects are of course superb. The alien war machines are quite true to the traditional idea and look very organic, which is wonderfully in keeping with the current viewpoint of sci-fi and a return to nature. Saying that, the supposedly sophisticated aliens did look like a bit like metal baboons with the eyes of that baby animal on “Madagascar”. The use of red throughout the war scenes in the film gave it all an eerie turn.

The acting, I felt, went from wooden to over-done- the pre-crisis stiffness had a miraculous change into lots of shouting and arms waving, and I can’t remember a single person saying “please” or “thank you”. The daughter’s role was obviously to show “the sheer horror of it all”, and whilst I agree with Ben that there was lots of realism, it got to the point for me that if
she screamed again I was rather hoping someone would gag her and put her in a basement for reasons other than her safety.

The son’s change from star whiner to sudden hero was too quick and shallow a change to be believable. Tom Cruise was, well, Tom Cruise. I also have to say that hiding in a part of the basement where there were loads of gas pipes during a major air raid and surviving stretched the suspension of disbelief a bit too far. Whether it was meant to be funny or not, annoying son asked dad where the war machines were from. He asks if they are terrorists. Dad says, “They’re from further away than that”. When son then suggests “Europe?” I had to stifle a giggle and think that the American-centric angle of some recent Sci-fis’ was not too far away.

I promised a compliment for the film at the end. It is true that the realism can hit hard, and some of the treatment of the humans by the aliens did make one think of the human-made disasters of our time- the holocaust to name one, and a number of dictators randomly killing innocent people now could be compared in the level of sheer horror. Whether this was intended I doubt it, but for an all action summer film for once it made me think.

www.waroftheworlds.com

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