Post #169895 by kha_o on Wed, Jul 6, 2005 7:19 AM

Went to a matinee yesterday and was impressed with the flick until Tim Robbins "no occupation ever succeeds" character showed up (after that, it was a downhill trip to Snoozeville).

The tension alone in the first 30-45 minutes was stifling - brought back the butterflies i always got right after the military threw me and a pallet of equipment into the back of a plane.

At least it was slow enough in the 2nd half to start wondering how the Tripods can vaporize 18-wheelers, but not a cotton t-shirt. ...and why didn't E.T. pass on to the invaders to get some immunizations before dropping by for a visit? Newark gets annihilated, but Boston doesn't? ...and where were all the gun nuts, or at least the people who could have used their Ewok learned skills and attack the Tripods with rolling logs and/or lines around the legs?

i was impressed (if that's the correct word) how, other than Tom's kid helping the folks onto the ferry, NO ONE we saw in the movie was presented as doing anything remotely heroic (protecting your children is an innate ability of the majority of mammels) - scavaging, killing each other, rioting, etc. - with the military getting treated as it unfortunately does in real life "they signed up to die, so let them."

During the first 30-45 minutes i was surprised how it echoed Wells' concept for the book in 1898 "Let's see how the British Empire feels when a technologically superior enemy attacks them" with the Brits in the role that the Indians and Africans took in real life at that time.

All in all, the movie was a stinker. Spielburg does his usual thing and starts holding back the punches to make a happy shiny ending - everything that happened from the dad and son playing catch until the dad and son hugged in the street were dismissed as pointless. It could have been a whitewater rafting trip gone wrong, not the liquidation of an unknown percentage of the world's population.

I was amazed with Morgan 'Easy Reader' Freeman's intro/outro - Orson would have been proud.

That said and done, i am looking forward to eventually seeing http://www.pendragonpictures.com/WOTWKEY.html

...and wholeheartedly recommend reading Inc. Sourcebooks' "War of the Worlds" compliation - http://sourcebooks.com/content/catalog/catalog.asp?isbn=1570719853

...and also "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Book 2" - http://dccomics.com/graphic_novels/?gn=2432